Song in Red & Gray
by BohemianCane04
Summary: Lord Beckett does not love, he only possesses. A series of vignettes. dark BeckettOC SMUT. Chapter Twenty Eight "Talk" Sharing a bed with James isn't easy.
1. Prolouge: First Time

_**Disclaimer: The mouse owns Beckett and Mercer (but they pwn everything else.) I own Rose, but I should mention she started out as a character on the Norrington RPG on this site. This story will have no ties whatever to this plot. The opening lyrics are originally property of Emma Donoghue from her novel Slammerkin**_

**_A/N: I intend this to be a series of very smutty vignettes spanning all three movies but there isn't any particular plot unless one emerges without my knowing it. I just want to experiment with this style of prose and with Beckett's ability to break the people in his life. This is more what T&T call "impressionistic storytelling." PLEASE READ & REVIEW_**

_Ribbon red, ribbon gray_

_Men will do what they may_

_Ribbon gray, ribbon gold_

_Ye must dance til ye be old_

_Ribbon gold, ribbon brown_

_What goes up must fall down_

_Ribbon brown, ribbon rose_

_Count your friends and your foes_

_Ribbon rose, ribbon white_

_Each day ends with a night_

_Ribbon white, ribbon green_

_Some grow fat, some grow lean_

_Ribbon green, ribbon red_

_The tale's not told until you're dead._

_**2-043: First Time**_

She'd been atop a cully when the door fell in. Standing in its wake a man in black. Stonefaced, he entered, reached out and threw her customer down the stairs by his neck.

"Put some clothes on," he'd said. "And follow me."

Rose didn't like being told what to do. From under her mattress a pistol aimed and ready. The man shook his head and threw a knife across the room that seemed to come from nowhere. Rose hissed like a cat as the gun was struck from her hand.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

He left. She dressed, less afraid than angry. The carriage outside too was black, the emblem: E. She asked if she was being arrested, was met with silence. They stopped. An enormous house loomed against the charcoal sea. He was deathly silent up the walk, a crushing grip on her forearm.

_Strong fucker_, Rose thought, unable to wrench away as he unlocked the door.

She barely had time to look around her. The halls were dark. Servants pattered like mice. Up stairs, down halls, suddenly ground to a halt. He knocked briskly.

"Enter."

She was yanked inside. The room was vast, pitch black except for one candle on a desk. A figure hunched in a massive carved wood chair. Rose squinted as the light wavered.

"Ah, Mr. Mercer."

He hadn't looked up. Her escort bowed stiffly.

"The girl as ordered, milord."

As ordered.

"Leave," he commanded.

She only heard the door close. There was a moment of complete silence. He stood.

That was how the whore looked into Lord Cutler Beckett's eyes for the first time, the color of ice, the color of storms.

If she had known then what those eyes would do to her, she would never have been able to hold them as she did. Brazenly. With pride.


	2. Chapter 1: Paddle

_A/N: WOW! I can't believe the kind of feedback this got! A big thank you to all my reviewers you guys rock. These updates are going to be coming really quickly both because they are so short and because I'm having too much fun. I own Rose, the rest of them aren't me. Disney called dibbs._

_**1-18: Paddle**_

It was a month before Mercer knocked. Another before the dog no longer fetched. Rose found her way.

There were others too, of course, though her friends gave low seabird whistles and told her to give up. Rose just grinned.

"If I wanted to fuck one man, Id'a married off."

One night she hooked a skinny lieutenant with eyes like a cat's. Nothing fancy, really quick. The following night he called.

Lord Beckett, customarily in his giant chair. A man who wasn't Mercer stood behind, scared.

"Lieutenant Groves." Beckett's voice was almost lazy.

"Yes sir?"

"I'm going to ask you a question."

"Yes, sir?"

"Is this the woman with whom you took your pleasure with last night in the shipyards? Be truthful now."

He shrank. Rose felt a stab of pity. She rather liked him.

"Yes sir…"

Beckett had a way of smiling only with eyes, so only she saw.

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

Groves turned.

"Sir?"

"Get _out._"

He sounded bored now, maybe even annoyed. Groves made a wide path around her. Door shut. He stood.

"You took another man," he murmured. "Why?"

Why was she sweating?

He laid something on the desktop. In the dark she made out a wide flat object. Beckett approached her slowly.

"_Why?_"

She swallowed, kept her tone firm.

"Because I'm a whore."

Defiance. The silence blazed. He went back to the desk and took the thing in his hands, almost lovingly.

"Bend over."

No arguments. She obeyed. Watched as he circled, blurred on her periphery. Then he stopped. One finger lifted her chin.

"I'm angry with you, Rose." His mouth an endless shape saying her name. "Can't you understand why?"

She did, but could not bring herself to say so. She gritted her teeth and lied instead.

"Not really."

And then she couldn't see him. The sound, the great rush of air, was worse than the pain. One swoop to leave his mark. He hit her like a signature and seal. After five he spoke. His voice was so soft.

"Never again, do you hear me, pet?"

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

She didn't reply. Swoop. Slam. Her body shuddered.

"Yes _what_?"

She didn't know her own voice.

"Yes…my lord."

Her vision swam as the black shape returned. She didn't have to see the smile. The voice held disdain.

"Get up."

When she found the strength to stand he came up close, fully aroused. She heard the heavy jingle in her pocket. Then he kissed her, trailing his mouth so gently across her cheek that the harsh whisper made her flinch.

"You are no _whore,_" he rasped. "You are _my_ whore. You belong to me. Now _get out!_"

Only the ocean and the sky saw Rose start to weep that night. There was twice as much money in the bag.


	3. Chapter 2: Present

_**AN: Sorry this chapter took so long. I struggled with this prompt and was fighting with my computer all week. Please keep reviewing!**_

**_I don't own anything you recognize._**

_**1-45: Present**_

_1._ _being, existing, or occurring at this time or now; current: _ _2._ _at this time; at hand; immediate:__ 3. thing offered, a gift  
_  
Her favorite thing nowadays: counting bruises. Sitting alone caressing herself. Like her hands could undo his.

She'd always had wounds; first the accident, then a few through the years from rough cullies. More now than ever. The little half moon on her neck from a too-rough push into the table. The small rubies down her spine by candle wax. These were Beckett's kisses. They excited him. The stroke, the slap. Soft nobleman's hands. Gardener watching flowers bloom. Red, violet, black. If she bled he came.

Then he'd be gentle, detached. Do what _she_ liked stopped when _he_ wanted. He whispered filth into her ear in his silken voice and made it poetry. In monotone smoothness he'd abuse, berate her.

"My ugly Irish alley cat. What an ugly little bitch you are, Rose. Mutilated scarred up little bitch."

The more he did this, the more he spoke, the harder it was. She heard him after she'd shut the door, run. He covered every inch. When the cuts disappeared he made new. He kissed soft, hit hard and left her always wanting. Pleasure, pain. This, her life. Rose was a thing tormented. Her lordship knew this too. Each hated and loved the other for it.

Rose looked herself over. She thought about life without Cutler. She yearned for all she had once been. She left for that damnable house.

Cutler shoved her against the wall. One cold hand slid to her breasts. Rose sighed but her Lord took his time. Ceased groping. Got close to her ear.

"I've a present for you."

One turn. Rose stayed put. A lid lifted by those nimble fingers.

"Come here."

She grinned and sat upon the desk, her skirt spilling like blood. He frowned.

"Don't do that."

A pause. She didn't move, kissed him. He bit. When they broke apart he showed her.

Nothing better than the glitter of gold, the handle encrusted with rubies and garnets. She saw herself trapped inside the wicked blade, wild red hair, eyes a nameless hue, a wide mouth.

He kissed her again. And when he did she imagined plunging it to the hilt inside him.

"You trust me," she hissed inside his mouth.

Lord Beckett laughed.


	4. Chapter 3: Restaurant

_**AN: Quick update because I have no life. Thank you to everybody who reviews/alerts! You guys really make my day. The mouse owns Beckett, Mercer and um...somebody else too. I own Rose and Goldie. Beckett's only line of dialouge belongs to the brilliant Telera and Ol' Jim belongs to Mysterywriter of Norrington RPG.**_

_**1-25: Restaurant**_

_The Dead Rabbit_, ensnarled in Port Royal's viper nest of sidestreets and alleyways. The only place one could get a bowl of potatoes for sixpence and not be at the chamberpot a week. Also one of the only places Rose's kind were welcome.

The owner, Ol' Jim, a toothless old sailor with a head like a corn kernel, hugged and led her to a decayed table.

"The usual then, thorny Rose?"

"Aye," she smiled. "Pitcher of grog too."

Before long she was kissing Goldie's rouged cheek. The other sat, tossing skirts and trademark hair.

"Let's see," she commanded. Rose emptied her purse with flourish on the splintered surface.

"Five pound."

"Liar! Well you're payin'. Christ the bloke must be mad."

Rose was quiet. Collogue and cullie ran up the rickety stairs, taking her reply with them. Goldie laughed.

"God I love this place. Food and business all in one."

Rose spoke, lump in her throat, smile on her mouth.

"What else is there?"

They each took a swig from the bottle. Goldie's sharp eyes stalked the door.

"Ooh. Speaking of business."

A man in a tattered Navy coat, torn almost beyond recognition. His queue undone, his face drawn. But something in the way he walked. He slumped into a chair, put his face in his arms. Rose cocked her head.

"He looks miserable poor soul."

"We're all miserable, darling."

Even this said with a smeared grin. Rose's reply too quick.

"I'm not."

Even a friend can turn a head to an obvious lie. Goldie knew that their trade bred trouble. So did Rose. Every girl for herself.

"So you won't mind if I take 'im then?"

"Be my guest. But I'll not wait for ya."

"Course not. Take what ya can."

"Give nothing back."

And she was gone. In a flash her arms around the sailor's neck. Rose could read the words upon her lips so often were they said.

"_What do ye lack, love? What do ye lack?_"

Two minutes and he's leading her out the door at a run. She giggles, waves hurriedly to Rose who salutes.

The following evening she's turned away. The dog Mercer stands at the door to the chamber

"Your services won't be required tonight, mum. Some urgent disciplinary business has come up."

She was angry at being dismissed that way, and frightened by the anger. Mercer marched off. She pressed her ear to the door. Heard his voice.

"What were you doing in a brothel…Admiral?" Beckett asked.

Rose shuddered. She knew those tones intimately. The hidden anger. Cutler had no patience for illicit activities in those he commanded. _Ha. If only they knew._

"Such a fucking hypocrite," she muttered to herself as she headed down the stairs. "That poor bastard's in for it."


	5. Chapter 4: Swinging

_**Okay, ladies and gentlemen we have AWE CANON::jumps:: I'm really proud of this chapter, hope y'all like it. I own nothing that looks familliar. R&R!**_

_**2-18: Swinging**_

Ten at a time. Ten at a time. Suspended. Suspended. Suspended.

Men, women, old young, every race, age, trade. All condemned to die.

Rose wasn't sure why she'd come, why anyone was watching this. Normally at a hanging people brought rum, toasted, jeered. Today only silence. Maybe a few tears, mostly from those on the line. For her part, Rose felt only vague pity, although she flinched hard every time that trapdoor banged open.

She wondered how, with the gray haze all around, the sun could still hurt her eyes. The company flag fluttered high overhead. Black, ominous, confident. The night before he'd made her lay wrapped in that flag while he fucked her. She looked toward the fort, imagined him there, oblivious to the carnage he affected. The conqueror. The devil. Her master.

Among the next set a baker's wife, a freed black, an older harlot with streaming eyes undoing her paints. Rose felt a pang. She didn't know her, but it still hurt to see another go down. She wouldn't be the last. Rose's hand curled around the dagger at her thigh and felt very afraid.

But directly in the middle stood the last of her strength. A young boy, barely ten, dwarfed by the shadows of the others. His face was marble white underneath blood and grime. The noose swung high over his head. Rose was stricken suddenly by a tide of black emotion. Panic, rage, but above all a gnawing, desperate heartbreak. He was so beautiful. But he was lower than dirt. He would be murdered before their eyes and no one cared. She had been him once. She probably still was.

But suddenly the parched lips opened. They moved. A whispered song. Rose couldn't make out the words, but they were known, taken up by the rest. And so quiet was the court adult voices could just barely be heard.

"_Yo ho…all hands…hoist the colors high…_"

Suddenly every prisoner's voice was ringing in the ash filled sky. The hangman picked her angel up upon a barrel, slipped the noose into place. They rattled their chains. A grim, ceaseless rhythm that frightened the marines who guarded them. Rose was powerless but to join. She threw back her head and united in the refrain.

_**"Yo ho, haul together! Hoist the colors high! Yo ho fools and beggars! Ne'er shall we die!"**_

She opened her eyes just in time to see them swing, her eyes upon the boy until the last. The song itself refused death. They sang until the last boots were thrown away. If he called tonight she would refuse. Today she was free. Today they were all free.

"They've…started to sing, sir."

He turned and strode to the wall, looked out over the square. The cacophony of ragged voices from filthy, destitute creatures both repulsed and excited him. The key to power lay in the most unexpected place.

"Finally."

His lieutenant stood beside him. It was then his eye singled her out. A fiery head catching the Port Royal sun. She was singing along with the rest.

What Beckett felt then was an extraordinary sense of success. The heart was his. The _Dutchman_ was his. Port Royal was his. Rose was his.

Soon, very soon, he would have it all.


	6. Chapter 5: Kneeling

_**Okay all, for those of you who haven't noticed the rating has gone up. Hopefully so has the temperature. I hope this pleases everyone. Disney owns Beckett. Nobody owns Rose I just take dictation from her and 50smutlets owns the prompts. R&R PLEASE!**_

_**2-17: Kneeling**_

There wasn't a Roman Catholic Church in Port Royal. Rose prayed in a basement.

A portrait of the Virgin tacked on the cracked wall, pilfered from a book she stole from Beckett. A wrought iron table she rescued from the curb of the blacksmith. She wished she could talk to her God in a chapel, but priests made her wary. Kneeling on a dirt floor was just as well.

Rose lit three candles. She loved the color of flames, the smell of smoke and humid air.

"Ma. Da…Andrew."

Just addressing them she felt their spirits around her. It filled her with both peace and terrible guilt. Seven Hail Mary's for that day's sins before she went off to commit another. In all likelihood her greatest.

_Forgive me my trespasses. And deliver me to evil. We all must stay alive._

She was greeted with a kiss that left blood on her lip and that voice hissing:

"Do me now."

"How?"

"Mouth."

She hoped her relief was hidden. A blow job was less creative than Cutler usually got. She wouldn't have to limp home. He threw her to the floor, but she landed on her hands. She slithered under the desk. He sat. Languid as water, hard as glass. Rose reached up, stroked the velvet and the stiffness. He growled.

"Don't tease."

"Oh," she mewled. "Your Lordship is no fun at all."

A fistful of hair yanked hard for this. In response she scraped one fingernail fast down his navel. He hissed and strangled a moan at the pain.

"Oh, _good girl_."

She knew exactly how he liked, and undid his breeches in silence. Unexpected really for such a small man to be so well sized. Saved her some nights, that.

"Look at me, pet."

She smiled up from between his knees. Signet ring made his caress cold.

"Such a plain thing," he purred, and she felt as though she were looking at herself from a distance.

"You picked me, love," she replied and set efficiently to work.

He liked it deep. All the way down. She tortured him, nipping sharply at him, rolling her eyes up to watch his fingers curl, and just as he was about to grow angry falling upon him. Engulfing it all, and listening with pleasure to the un-lordly whimpers that came from Cutler's throat. He grasped down, entangling his fingers in her frizzy curls. She breathed carefully. He'd pull if she tried to pull away. She was fast, and could feel him tightening. She was expected to take every drop.

It's a little known fact that if a cullie asks for a blow, a miss always asks what he's eaten first. You can taste it on them. Tonight her Lordship tasted of strawberries. He leaned down to take her chin in his palm. She swallowed. And he wiped the excess from her mouth.

"You made it sweet for me."

"Anything for my pet," he smiled.

He kissed her, got a taste of his own. _Self-important in everything,_ Rose thought. Then he took a pinch of fabric from her skirt between his fingers.

"You're filthy."

Only then did she notice the faint brown stain. Sometimes a chapel was better than a dirt floor. She thought of the candles, and was sad. But she smiled at him.

"In every sense of that term," she said.


	7. Chapter 6: Twins

_**AN: Hi all! I'm back! Sorry about the wait but I've been away. The good news is I have 5 chapters written now so the updates should be quicker. Still don't own a thing!**_

_**2-26: Twins**_

"I'll come with you," she'd begged. "Andrew, please don't leave me."

"I got no choice, Rose. Mr. Gibbs says girls on ships are unlucky."

Rose threw her arms in the air.

"Ah, bloody Englishmen don't know anything! What about Grace O'Malley?"

Her brother looked at her imperiously.

"Grace O'Malley doesn't count, she's a pirate."

"I'll be like her! Cut my hair and go on the _Constance _with you."

And she truly believed if she cut off her hair she'd become him. That was all it'd take really. A mirror image. Rose Aednat and Andrew Cillian. Redheaded, frecklefaced. Irish with a French surname, which meant that in London they had one chance in five to continue to exist. When they found themselves docked in Port Royal it became one in two. Looking back, they'd fought for it without even knowing.

The night before he sailed was the first time she hated him. They were twelve. Parents barely in their graves. Living with rich cousins who dressed in black, brought them to a church that wasn't theirs. They were all too happy at Andrew going to sea. There was, however, nothing to be done with the girl. The argument lasted for hours and culminated with Rose climbing out a window while everyone slept, showing up at the docks the next morning before he boarded. Sick with worry, Andrew had hit her, then kissed her. They both cried. She could still see him standing starboard on that great ship waving and shouting:

"I love you!"

A decade later, the second time she hated him was very much the same. They argued and he hit her. But there was no kiss to follow. And it was she who did the leaving. She had been a miss near since he left, and she barely recognized him. His brogue had vanished, his freckles taken by the Caribbean sun, his red hair hidden under a ridiculous white wig, surrounded by men in crimson coats. But the face she looked into was practically her own.

Barely half an hour found them standing in the alley behind the building. Countless lovers taken here. It hurt her to see him even standing on such ground.

"I can't believe you! I've been away ten years and _this_ I come back to find! How, Rose? Tell me how!"

"What would you have me do? Sit around and sew while those asses we lived with constantly tell me how worthless I am? End up married to some old bastard, without love, without freedom. You should know me better than that, Andrew!"

She threw him off before he could shake her, but her eyes were large once he turned away.

"But Rose, this? _This_ is what you've chosen? You've ruined yourself."

She knew this of course, but on his lips was a fresh wound. It coursed through her like magma, burned her soul to cinders. Still she reached for him.

"How can I face my comrades? How can I call myself honorable when my sister might at any moment be sleeping with one of my men? I won't have it, Rose."

Quickly as it abated, her temper flared back to life. She marched up to face him. Surveyed with blazing eyes.

"You've changed," she stated. "That ship and those boys in there have changed you. Do you even love me anymore Andrew?"

The way he looked at her confirmed her suspicions. She saw the old Andrew looking through his eyes. Sad. Pleading. But smothered quickly by the steadfast marine. It was that man who asked, no, demanded:

"Do you love yourself anymore, Rose?"

She couldn't tell how, but she knew as he walked away she'd never see him again. He wanted to go back, but he didn't. She wanted to call to him, but she didn't.

Pride and love make children of us all. Now she was with another man who hit and kissed her, who covered his hair with a white wig. A man without emotion in his eyes. Now her brother was dead and she hoped to God she was forgiven.


	8. Chapter 7: Banana

_**AN: Straight smut for this one guys. Just a pallette cleanser before the MONDO ANGST coming in the next chapter. I don't own Beckett but he pwns me**_

_**1-21: Banana**_

It was morning. She'd slept in his house, woke in his bed.

With the ray of sun that hit her face came a choking fear. Never before had she fallen asleep in his presence. That vulnerability scared her. She might be punished for it. She replaced her clothes and tread silently where she knew he'd be.

He didn't look up. Acknowledgment with a tremor in the muscles of his neck.

"You didn't throw me out."

She sounded grateful, didn't know why, didn't like it.

"You'll leave at sunrise."

She glanced out one the enormous windows. An amber glow only just pervaded the horizon. Dyed gray ground in blood and fire.

Lord Beckett signed the letter he was writing with harsh flourish. Stood up. Surveyed her. There was a bowl of fruit on the desk beside him.

"Eat before you go," he said.

Because he was Beckett, and because she was herself, Rose understood the implications of this sentence. Smiling, she perched the mahogany corner, took a banana from the spread.

A very familiar shape. She pierced the top with one lengthy nail. Tore slowly at the thick skin, dropping the entire peel briskly into the wastebasket. (Had it hit the rug, Cutler might've killed her.) Then she took both soft ends in each and split it. She placed half gingerly to rest upon her knee, slowly ate the other. The meat so soft she barely had to use her teeth. He stared at her mouth.

He was on her suddenly, his hands at the base of her throat. He kissed hungrily, taking the taste of fruit and woman. Rose expected this every now and again. Her lord was wound tightly. Everyone knew Cutler Beckett was a caged lion. Only she got the claws.

Something soft came through her fingers. She looked down and frowned.

"Uch."

He looked too, a ghost of a smile playing on his thin lips.

"Clumsy girl," he sighed.

Both her hands in one of his. His tongue smooth and hot across her coarse pauper's palms. The flash of his throat as he swallowed. Rose bit her lip and controlled ticklish squeals. Also controlling the repulsion…and strange rush…she felt.

As rapidly as it had happened, he suddenly stepped away. He went back behind the desk. She heard a door unlock. Smiling, he removed a small pouch. Leaned forward, jingled it before her eyes. She snatched it with a little growl.

"You really keep it in a plain drawer just like that?" she asked. "Anybody could take it from you."

A pause.

"Off you go," he answered.

She didn't bother to look back, so she didn't see him at the window. Watching her as she strode out into the burning, Hellish dawn.


	9. Chapter 8: Voyuerism

_**1-21: Voyeurism**_

Tonight his kiss was soft. Hands clasped against her shoulders. Beckett was in a good mood. Rose felt she had reason to worry. She perched on the desk where he hated her to be. He made no move to stop her, just stood in silence for a moment looking at her, a slight smile on thin lips.

"How goes it with you then, love?" A cover for her nervousness. He gave her a sideways look.

"Well thank you, my dear."

This punctuated by another feather-light kiss. She wondered if maybe he was drunk.

But when he pulled back there was lightning in his frozen eyes.

"Rose. We're going to try something…a little different tonight. I hope you don't mind."

Worry turned to fear. In the last months with the Lord she'd done things to make other whores green. She could only imagine what he thought 'different.'

Smile, a protective shield. Her voice stale honey.

"Whatever your Lordship wishes, Cutler," she acceded. "You know that."

He smirked.

"That's my pet. I think you will enjoy this."

There was a knock. Rose jumped, her apprehension growing by the second. They were _never_ interrupted. Ever. Cutler's eyes began to glow.

"Enter," he called.

A tall man. Decked to the nines in brocade and silk. Rose read the barely disguised pleasure on her patron's face. She'd never seen that look before. It terrified her.

"Ah," he murmured. "Admiral."

The man's eyes flashed confusedly to Rose before snapping to meet his. He bowed hastily.

"You, ah, you summoned me…Lord Beckett?"

"Yes," her Lord hissed. "Make yourself comfortable."

He removed his coat, hat, sword and wig, letting chestnut hair fall to his shoulders. He moved like a puppet on a string. Stood rigidly, hands at his back. Pain was in his eyes.

After seconds of silence Beckett stood. Went to Rose's side. His hand an iron clamp upon her shoulder.

"Admiral, this is Rose." The way he said it was as though she were a dog, curled sleeping at his feet. "She is a…friend and business associate."

She almost laughed. More still when the Admiral bowed shakily and called her:

"Milady."

Silence descended again. Cutler took Rose's hand, silently bidding her stand.

"Tell me, Admiral," he purred. "Is she not lovely? Do you not think her the most beautiful creature that ever you beheld?"

Compliments meant trouble. Still Rose allowed his voice to wash over her. She didn't believe his words, but she could enjoy them. The Admiral, she saw, was lying too. He replied:

"Y-yes, milord. Of course."

Cutler grinned. The Serpent of Eden had a kinder smile.

"Would you like to fuck this woman, Admiral?"

The man turned sharply, eyes wide as dinner plates.

"My Lord?" he asked nervously. Rose looked back at Beckett, brow arched.

"That's the game, pet," he answered to something unsaid. "Tonight I am giving you to the Admiral to play with. And _I_--"

He sat in his chair, fingers locked together.

"I am going to watch."

"My lord!" The man, shaking his head. "Please—I don't think—"

"_James_."

A name. Not a true order, not even loud. The Admiral lowered his eyes."Cutler," Rose turned back. "Are you sure?"

He actually laughed. Leaned forward and kissed her again, rough.

"Ah Rose. So loyal. Such a good girl. Yes I'm quite sure. Go on now."

She was less opposed to this than she probably should've been. He was handsome. Soft hair. Eyes the color of the sea. Whores didn't get men like these. He inhaled sharply as she got up close, and kissed his earlobe.

"What do you lack, angel?" she whispered. "What do you lack?"

He melted then. Fell into the chair waiting behind him. While he undid his buttons his eyes shut. Rose thought this a good idea. She couldn't recall ever having done it with an audience. She hitched up her skirts, mounted him.

She could feel Cutler's eyes on her.

The act itself was no different. He moaned softly. He petted her hair. Kissed her face over and over. A seemingly gentle man. If such a thing existed. When he came he threw his arms around her and whispered in her ear: _Oh Elizabeth…_

Their first instinct was to look back. Lord Beckett sat, looser than Rose had ever seen him. Elated.

"Good," he whispered. "Button up now, Admiral. Rose, you come here, darling."

She slid to him. Yo-yo pulled back to guiding hand. James stood, fairly dazed.

"Put your skin back on," Beckett ordered.

The coat, the wig, the sword. He stood straighter.

"Well then…my Lord will that be all?"

Silence. A smile. Cutler picked up his wooden cane. Twirled it absently, eyes ablaze.

"Not quite. In all the…_excitement_, I'd nearly forgotten."

He now addressed her, but the eyes never strayed from the puppet by the door.

"This is a true man of honor you've had, Rose. Meet Admiral James Norrington."

In hearing that name a part of Rose died away. As something else had died those years before. A name pulled from memory. From a letter. From praise sung by lips that wouldn't sing again.

Norrington didn't even have time to draw his sword. She leapt. Clawed, bit, snarling like an animal. Even her voice was no longer her own. A banshee's wail to kill the man stone dead.

_"Bastard! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"_

Over the din Beckett spoke. His voice was calm. Mercer entered and promptly dragging her to the other side of the room. Bound. Caged. Wild. Her Lordship's voice, placid as poisoned twilight.

"Apologies, James. Rose has quite a temper. She didn't let me finish."

He clucked at her. She lowered her head. Wept.

"I'd like to introduce you, Admiral, to Miss Rosalean Gillette."

His voice dropped to a whisper. An icy wind.

"I do believe that name is a familiar one."

Norrington paled. His hand made a grab for the doorknob. Shivered.

"Gil...Gillette?"

And then, with barely voice at all:

"_Andrew?_"

"My brother!" she hollered, struggling against Mercer's grip. "_You killed my brother! He followed you to his death! You bastard!_"

By the time the footsteps barreled down the stairs her shouts dissolved to incomprehensible screaming. She was dimly aware as Mercer released her. She could only sink into a heap where she fell. The cum of her brother's murderer dry upon her thighs.

She saw the tips of black boots. The hand that pulled her onto her knees had never known a day's struggle. A thousand questions flooded her. One emerged in a tiny, weak voice:

"Why did you do that?"

Lord Beckett turned from her, gazing instead at the magnificent map spread over his wall.

"Because Norrington needs to learn his place. Thanks to you I have just broken him. Now everything can proceed as planned."

He returned to where she'd stayed on her knees. One finger wiped away her tears. Lifted to those lips. He tasted her pain. The whole hand caressed her hair.

"There'll be twice as much for you," he said.

And she accepted his money and his touch. They were all she had and all she deserved.


	10. Chapter 9: Body Paint

_**More angst ahead everybody! I thought I'd put both chapters up on the same day because they are related. Still don't own a thing.**_

_**2-29: Body Paint**_

She ran as the devil was upon her, stumbling a few times. So hard to breathe. Threw herself onto the mattress. Screamed. Sobbed. Words garbled, oppressive air.

_Oh Andrew! God damn him! I didn't know. I didn't. I'm sorry…I'm sorry._

Eventually her body wore out, but it seemed forever before sitting up. In the mirror faded hair, scrawny arms and neck. Littered with the trophies of warranted cruelty. But her eyes. Her eyes were sphered in black-purple muck that streaked every exposed inch. Hands, arms, face covered in it. She slid from the bed. Boneless. And as her legs rubbed together another mark. Sticky. Sinful.

Rage was all she felt then. She leapt to her feet. Grabbed a washcloth from the basin into her cracked, red hands. She heard the tear of fabric. Pieces of her cheap skirt lay on the floor. Everything cheap.

She couldn't, wouldn't dare look down at her legs. Into that wasteland of jagged, burgundy-gray. Crude, everlasting blossoms. The Lord that made them not the one she served now.

Instead she scraped the rough fabric inside herself. Over and over until she was raw in all the places they had been. Bitter water poured over the death on her skin. It wouldn't wash away Norrington. Not Andrew's eyes. What she was.

And in this knowledge Rose grabbed up her knife from the splintering floor. She took a streak of black upon her fingers. One shallow slice across the thigh. Mixed. Then she crawled into bed, sleeping only with blood, pain and paint. In her dreams green eyes, puppets and her brother's voice calling:

_What do you lack? Do you love yourself? What do you lack?_


	11. Chapter 10: Erotica

_**A/N: AND I'M BACK! Sorry about this huuuuuge delay, my internet's been down. Way down. But I wrote a bunch of chapters. So a little smut to whet your appetites. Beckett is property of Ted & Terry, Rose is mine. The poem "The Submission" belongs to my man John Wilmot. Where are my Libertine fans?**_

_**1-25: Erotica**_

"Can you read?"

Patronizing. Stroking hair. Her hand cradled his balls.

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

Rose leaned forward with a devil red grin. Angry tonight. Angry always.

"Yes _Cutler_."

Beckett shook his head disapprovingly. One orange curl in marble hands. Pulled hard. Rose swore.

"God damn!"

That earned a slap, as efficient as the slam of a drawer. Sex punctuated by blood, wit and quiet.

"Why?"

He smiled, and placed her fingers back on him as he reached for a paper at his bedside. She surveyed the writing.

"_The Submission_, the Earl of Rochester."

Cutler settled back into three satin pillows. If she didn't know him, he'd look perfectly innocent.

"Read. Change the pronouns. Hers to his."

"I know what a pronoun is, Your Lordship," she said.

He grabbed her chin.

"Don't sass me," he whispered. "I don't like it. Now read."

Voice more than hand made her mouth run dry. Rose lowered her eyes and started slowly.

"_To this moment a rebel, I throw down my arms,/Great Love! At first sight of Othello's bright charms."_

It had been Olinda on paper. And her Lord's slight nod bid her go on. As she read she watched him move toward her. He flipped on his stomach. He parted her thighs.

"Er… _Made proud and secure by such forces as these,/You…you may now be a tyrant as soon as you please."_

To her, the petting hand was softer than the finest fabric. Breath hitched in her throat.

"Whe…_when innocence, beauty, and wit do conspire/To betray, and engage, and inflame my… desire,/Why should I decline what I cannot avoid,/And let pleasing hope by base fear be destroyed?"_

He lowered his head. And when he spoke she felt the word in the deepest caverns of her body.

"Good."

The words began to blur together. Tongue in slow circles.

"_His innocence cannot contrive to undo me;/His beauty's inclined, or why should it pursue me?/And wit has to…wit has to…"_

Between his teeth the most tender fold. Tears sprang to Rose's hazel eyes.

"Oh Holy Jesus--**Pleasure**! _Pleasure been ever a friend;/Then what room for despair, since delight is love's end?"_

"I'll make you bleed if you stutter again," he informed her in monotone.

Her liquids rose even as she writhed against the hurtful mouth. He gripped her leg. Held fast. Her words were rushed, breath barely sustained.

"_There can be no danger in sweetness and youth/Where love is secured by good nature and truth./On her beauty I'll gaze, and of pleasure complain,/While every kind look adds a link to my chain!"_

"Slow down," he drawled, two fingers into her.

"_'Tis more to maintain than it was to surprise,/But his wit leads in triumph the slave of his eyes."_

She was near to her peak. But he stopped. Her whole body cried. He looked up without rising.

"I like this line," he murmured. "I want to hear it."

Rose did not like the line. She wanted to cum. She wanted to hide. The stink of subservience on her.

"_I beheld with the loss of my freedom before,/But, hearing, forever must serve and adore."_

She could barely choke the words out over her racing heart. Suddenly he had her by the shoulders, staring into her eyes.

"Say you'll do it." His voice a primal, ravenous growl. He shook her. "Serve and adore. Say it!"

"Lord Beckett—" The title out before she could stop herself. The whole sentence rang of treason. "Please…"

"Say it."

She gulped back a stone in the back of her throat. The ache threatened to rip her apart.

"But, hearing, forever must serve and adore."

It crackled like lightning in the torrid air. The strange flicker faded from his eyes. They were cold once again.

"Finish," he commanded.

"Fuck me."

Her order matched his. He smiled.

"You finish, I finish."

Rose held the paper up above her face.

"_Too bright is my god, his temple too weak./Retire, divine image! I feel my heart break./Help, Love! I dissolve in a rapture of charms/At the thought of those joys I should meet in his arms."_

The last words from Rose's throat for a time. Minutes later they each lay panting, sweat dampened. Cutler's head rested where it fell between her legs. Ice eyes caught a new red line there. Unfamiliar.

"Pet, you're hurt."

He licked the cut. The pain helped her to remember who she was.


	12. Chapter 11: Fantasy

_**A/N: Angst and weirdness ahoy. This chapter goes would not have been possible without my dearest Subia Jasmine, who provided me with the article on all the different ways to kill people. I own nothing recognizable.**_

_**1-37: Fantasy**_

He sat. She lay upon the bed. Dagger turning in her hands. Jewels in candlelight. Blood red. Blood. Red.

A group, twenty, thirty would do. People whom her Lord had wronged wouldn't be hard to find. Stones. He unbound. Rose would cast first. He would run but her aim too perfect. Strike those flawless, frightening boots. Down he'd fall and down come hard, raw rocks. They'd laugh, jeer. She silent. Stoic as he would be. Smiling as the wig fell and blood matted cornflower curls only she saw. Finally he'd lie still. She'd approach, turn the body. Blood leaking from lips no longer mocking. Eyes possessing no shine to stir her fear.

Or maybe, she thought, order four of his best horses tear him limb from limb. She'd stand in a fine lady's dress with a fan. His screams echoing, her smile hidden. But he treated those horses superior to her. It would have to be something else. Sharks. Snakes. His natural counterparts.

Lord Beckett watched her though the shadows. Naked. Pensive. Twirling his gift like a lifeline. Silhouette of neck and shoulder. The flash of her throat drawing breath. He wondered if she'd sleep. Perhaps a satin pillow over the mouth if she did. Red lips, blue, purple, white. But he'd heard some victims bit the pillows with their last strength. It cost too much.

She hated being caged. If he so much as locked the bedroom door she'd pace and plead. Maybe immurement would do, as with Gherardesca in _The Divine Comedy_. Lock her up. Build a wall. Listen to her weep for days. He loved it when she wept. But how would he watch? Maybe just one slot. Cutler imagined looking at those eyes surrounded by brick and mortar. Beautiful…

He was staring now. Watching her watch. Rose took him in. Wide blue eyes. Features aquiline, nearly elfin in a strange way. Lips small but invitingly full. His appearance could almost be described as, dare she say, angelic.

Once she'd slept with a Captain just come from Singapore. He'd told her the done thing there. "Death by a thousand cuts." The convict tied down and sliced hundreds of times. Maybe she'd round up the pirates he was forever hunting. Maybe they'd brand him. She imagined his struggles. She wanted him to bruise, bleed, beg for mercy from his pet now she'd gone rapid.

He could do it legally, Cutler thought suddenly. Loose women were killed daily. All he'd have to was show the marks. Wounds of passion. Treason. She'd burn. Yes, he wanted fire for her. Still trapped, but glowing as well. Would it resemble this? Her face in the candlelight? Would it finish her quickly? Or take its time as he did? He pictured the crown of flames. Her ginger mane. Unable to tell softness from heat.

The second his screams weighed on her the final blow. Rose closed her eyes Imagined it. Kissing him. A taunt hushing the screams. Holding the dagger high. Ending the pain…Down in ruby, garnet blood. The color of sex, pain, love and freedom

Up in the sensuality of flames. Dead Rose would be his forever. Alive she was beautiful and pliable. It was a difficult choice.

Killing her lordship. A beautiful nightmare.

Lord and whore met eyes just then. There was iron and silk in his voice. He asked:

"What are you thinking about?"

Rose smiled a little girl's smile and licked the hilt of her dagger. Beckett got hard.

"You," she purred.


	13. Chapter 12: Silk Sheets

_**A/N: Okay y'all; sex, angst and psychosis ahead. These are a few of my favorite things. I don't own Beckett, or the flag, just the redhead on it.**_

_**1-47: Silk Sheets**_

He never talked so much. The voice, insidious. She on the floor, his thrusts banging her head into the desk leg. Naked in black.

She'd thought it a death shroud. Fought viciously. The Lord just laughed, slapping her, throwing her to the floor in python's embrace. Only then did she see white letters. He ran his hands down her thigh, moaned, shoved in. Hadn't stopped talking since.

Telling her of all those to die in coming days.

"Course of duty," he grunted, cupping the cheek of her arse in hand. "State of emergency. You've…no idea how many…convictions…It's almost _purification_."

The hangings. All Port Royal in fear…all below a certain class. The charges ambiguous, the number condemned in the hundreds. The guilty? Considerably smaller. It was days away. All that death…

Beckett bit her neck. She couldn't feel, entirely focused on keeping the pictures of his words from her mind.

"Every trace of piracy scourged!" Jubilant, breathless. "Now I have…all I need…I'm close…I am so close, Rose."

Her name jerked her back to him. Just as his thoughts went back to execution.

"All those deviants taking the fall. About time someone did something…I'll change this harbor forever."

Unconsciously she writhed against the flag. Commoners. People she lived with. Just people. _Her_ people. Deviants? What was this then? What were they?

Rose remembered starting the trade, learning what a whore could be. She learned of the women in brothels. Perfumed beauties fat on bonbons lying on silk sheets waiting to be fucked by men like Lord Beckett. Then thrown like garbage at first wrinkle. The thought had made her shudder.

But this was it, she realized now. That was what they were. _These_ were her silk sheets, this conqueror's flag. Her diamonds, a dagger she never removed. Her roses the blood on her thigh. Sonnets written for her were the death warrants of innocents.

"One…very intriguing…Boy. Ten. _Uh!_ Heir to a pilfered fortune."

Eyes snapped open. Tousled head up.

Ten years old? He was going to kill a child? _Kissing_ as he told her? Bile swelled in her throat.

"_Stop._"

She didn't realize she'd spoken until his eyes grew hard. He looked down at her. Stroked her cheek. She winced.

"Pet. Does this upset you?"

She turned her head. Beckett grinned and leaned down slowly to her ear, kissing her cheek, inhaling her smell.

"Have you any idea how many of your kind will die?" he murmured, like he was telling of her beauty. "Ladies of the night, misses just like you? So many get involved with pirates…They're traitors simply by trade, but now they pose a threat to my enterprise. Such a pity."

That voice. Her skin too tight. She arched her back against the binds. His detachment, his apparent indifference, his _enthusiasm_ to death, maddened her."Will I be among them?" she spat.

A smile. Flick of the fingers. Untied. She sat up. Beckett leaned in, nuzzled her neck like a foal.

"This room," he whispered, "is safe as you make it, pet. Be a good girl and you'll always have my blessing."

There were red rings on Rose's ankles where the flag had tightened. Itching and burning all the way home.


	14. Chapter 13: Alcohol Chapter 14: Hate

_**A/N: Okay this update is a biggie for a few reasons. One: It's a plot point in a fic that has no plot. Two: It's a double header two chapters in one. And three: It's coming to you from someone who is now a college freshman! Warnings: Beckington overtones, Gillington undertones and some language. I don't own James ::pouts:: but I own Rose.**_

_**2-10: Alcohol**_

_Tap! Tap!_ Norrington's fist on the bar.

"'Nother."

The barkeep reached. James licked his lips, craving. But the keep cut him off. And the jangle of glass against wood jars nerves. The sound of a fist in anger, a thud, his body fell. Slamming the door. It rained. Humidity filled nose and mouth. And deep within a throbbing, desperate sting penetrating his soul.

He couldn't make the voices go away. Faces flooded his dreams. Endless hurricane seas, Lord Beckett's eyes their color.

Just thinking of him made James' muscles clench. Sweat on his forehead and at his neck. His neck…

Everything spun. Everything hurt. A man, ginger hair hidden in powder, reached a hand across James' memory. And try as he might he couldn't take hold.

But there was a hand to reach now. Now that same burning hair and those eyes that sparkled so. But full of tears. He thought about her, lying on the floor screaming. Letting out all those things he'd held in. The grief, the rage, the hatred, all stuffed down under bone and brocade. Everything Rose saw in him was everything he was.

Nothing could tell him why he was running. He only knew he was running to her. He needed his apology heard, even if in deaf ear. Needed Andrew's eyes in that girl's face, even if they narrowed and blazed with accusation.

He was bound same as she. Maybe she'd help him understand what was happening to him. Maybe she'd kill him.

James wasn't shocked by the thought that either would be preferable.

_**1-4: Hate**_

Someone banging, screaming.

"_Rose!_" A desperate wail, like ghosts from the moors of her childhood. "_Rose Gillette! Please!_"

Rose gripped her knife, stalking to the door. Wrenched it open.

"Oh God," she gasped.

The blade. All James' wild emotions died away. Numb. Always numb.

"What the fuck do you want?"

No answer for this. The whore scowled.

"You better tell me what you're doin' or I'll open your throat, by God."

This said with a practiced air, only the faintest emotion. Norrington was chillingly reminded of Mr. Mercer.

But her eyes were wide, her hand shaking like his voice.

"I…wanted…to talk to you."

His words slurred together. He had to stop, extract them slowly.

"I know…that in all probability you'll turn me away. But—"

"Damn right," she cut him off, starting to close the door. In a sudden panic he grabbed it.

"Please!" His eyes shone, begging shamelessly. "I'll pay if you like. Without…anything."

He colored, looked away.

"I only wish to speak. Please."

She scrutinized him wordlessly. Eyes glazed, bloodshot. Hair, clothes soaked. Trembling. A far cry from Andrew's beloved commodore.

Maybe that was what made her snap:

"Get in."

But entering, all words left. In her cramped, shabby room. She sat fluidly upon the bed, eyes locked on him, posture rigid.

"So? Your tea party. Talk."

_Tea party…God…_Eyes rolled, heart raced. _Heart…_

Words. Trickling water past the stones lodged in his throat and chest.

"I didn't know."

A copper eyebrow arched like a lit match.

"What?"

"A-a-about you," he stammered clumsily. "He never told me he had…that you…"

Silence. Rose lifted her chin, but turned her eyes away. Something flickered there, sadness. ike winter light.

"He wouldn't've." Said almost to herself.

No longer upon him, her eyes made James feel sad. He sighed, daring a step forward.

"It was…my job to go to the officers' families," he said. "Andrew said his parents had passed. I didn't think—"

"Good thing," she said calmly. "If you had, you'd be dead now I think."

He didn't doubt that she meant it.

"You would have been within your rights," he mumbled, then looked up, deep into her face that was so like her brother's. Unbearably he wanted to get close to her.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

For a moment, silence. She got to her feet. He waited for her to lunge like she had in the office. To put that pretty dagger through his neck. He wanted that, and Rose was seriously contemplating.

But she did something else. She laughed at him. Threw back her head. The lamplight made her hair catch fire. A terrible goddess. A burning witch. And then the screeching laughter. Laughing until James thought the walls of his mind would converge, until she doubled over gasping.

"You…you're sorry?" Shouting now, mad with years of anger and a yearning never to be fulfilled. "You come to my home too drunk to see and tell me you're sorry? Fuck you, Norrington. T'aint my life you ruined. You just took the last cause for it is all."

He didn't bother to speak. He needed abuse. Abuse was all he had now.

"It was you what took him from me. He went off on that damn ship with you fighting your battles and aping your ways. Forgetting who he was. And when he came home you meant more to him than I. _That's_ why he never told you, _Commodore._ Embarrassed to confess his twin nothing more than an Irish guttersnipe. Chose over his own blood he did. And what'd it get him? Washed away like flotsam for one man's pride and broken heart."

He flinched hard. So she knew it all. His great disgrace had reached the lowest slums. In a whore's rooms he heard all his own thoughts echoed. All his nightmares playing out from lips he'd kissed so hungrily on a French velvet chair.

And she stared him down now, concocting and discarding ever more ways to hurt him, pushing away the disturbing thought that hurting him would not be enough to give her peace.

It had to be enough. Rose would make it enough.

Breaking. Fractured. And when he came forward and took her by the shoulders in that way Andrew used to do she couldn't find the strength to push away.

"I'm sorry!" He repeated it again and again. "I'm sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry. Please I beg you."

Hard as diamond, fever hot was her expression.

"I'm going to show you something," she said, brushing past him into a corner. Getting down on her knees she jerked up a floorboard with sinewy arms. That was when James noticed. Her neck. The bruises. Her hair had been covering them. He said nothing, but the thing around his neck seemed to constrict, cut off the air. Choking.

Under the plank a small crevice between wall and floor. Treasure stolen from her dragon. Dignity parceled in bronze and silver coins. Rose looked down and shook her head almost disapprovingly. Then she reached back and removed a wooden box, overstuffed with all those things she at once loved and could not bear.

_My whole life here in front of you_, she thought, looking to him. _And it fits in a cigar box. Pathetic._

She found it then. Creased so many times that she feared it might come apart in her hands.

"Be careful," she snapped handing it to him. James sat on her bed without asking. Even from where he stood he had recognized Andrew's minute, coiled scrawl, and the sight of it sent his heart hammering. James used to say he was the only man alive who could read his Lieutenant's handwriting. As close to teasing as they got. Pity he'd been wrong. His eyes scanned the page almost desperately.

My dear wild Rose,

I have begun a thousand letters to you since we parted. Let's hope this one makes it til the end, and that you don't tear it up when you see it, little fire. This may be my last chance to make things right. I'll never forgive myself for letting you leave that night, sister. The idiocy of my pride has tormented me, but I feared I would not be able to find you, or worse yet, that you would not accept my apology. You, my darling, are of course just as stubborn as I am.

But all fear must be gone from my heart now, Rose. A greater fear is taking hold. Not for me, but for that beloved person whom I have served and will continue to serve all my days, however long or short they may be.

My shipmates and I have followed the Commodore's orders in his relentless pursuit of the pirate Jack Sparrow. But the scoundrel is crafty and wise to our chase. Just when it seems we finally have him he manages some fantastical feat or another and manages to elude us. And each time, I feel the Commodore's nerves fray a little more. He works us to the bone, and sails on new and dangerous courses. I see a look in his eyes that frightens me; driven, obsessed. He calls it the pursuit of duty, bound to the law. But I cannot help but wonder if he blames Sparrow for his great misfortune. I will not disrespect him by writing it all down in detail for you. You probably know it nevertheless and if you don't you need only go into a tavern to hear. What I will say is that I do not believe this would be happening to us if the lady the commodore loved had merely kept her promise. She has rejected him, and I hate her for this.

That is a thing to love in you, Rose. You forswore your promises entirely in order to keep from breaking them.

I know this letter, with all this talk of my superiors and troubles, is not nearly enough to undo all the time past between us. I know you may never forgive me. I know you think me weak and that I have become one of them. All this is most certainly true. I was never as bold, or as clever as you. But I would rather go to Hell itself than go one more day without telling you of my love. I wish you had had my life. You would have done better with it. The truth is, Rose, I have a terrible, terrible feeling.

We are approaching the coast of Tripoli and the sky is black. It pulsates, seemingly with a life of its own. And the sea undulates beneath our bow with a restlessness that cannot be denied. A storm is brewing, and for the first time I am afraid. In another time I could have spoken to Commodore Norrington on it, but of course that is impossible. I trust him with all my heart, but I cannot shake this feeling of ill fate.

And so I write to you with the steel of the Holy Spirit in my spine and the love of the Blessed Virgin in my heart forever. I don't think I'll live much longer. If I am correct in this, I leave you with the knowledge that I am sorry. I was wrong. I abandoned you. May God have mercy on me for it. And I go with one last irritating elder-brotherly order, (for I still precede you by five minutes) Do not allow anyone to demean you as I did in that alleyway. Follow the beating of your heart and the word of the Lord and look down to no other but Him. And do not weep if I should go. Remember, we are twins. Two halves of a whole. And that means we will never be apart. I do not fear death, Rose. For I know I will meet Ma and Da on the far side at the gates. We will wait for you there, little fire. I love you.

Your brother,

Andrew

That piece of paper floated down and toppled the stone wall inside James Norrington. There was no propriety, there was no honor, there was no goodness. It had all died with that boy. And so he just lay his head down in his arms and wept. Skin did nothing to muffle screams and snarls and sobs. He wanted to tear off his skin. He wanted to obliterate every trace of his existence.

Most of all he wanted Andrew.

He knew. He knew of his own death and yet he had followed James into that hurricane without as much as an upward glance. He had trusted him. And James had failed.


	15. Chapter 15: Submissive

_**Hi everybody! Okay just for clarification this is a direct continuation of the last chapter. After this they'll get more drabbly like they did in the beginning. This chapter is really, really important to me so any comments/critiques would be awesome. I own nothing**_

_**1-14: Submissive**_

Rose didn't bother him as he cried. Sat watching. The sobs lessened, stopped. But he didn't move. When her leg began to cramp she stood.

"Get up," said she. "Yeh makin' me sick."

Eyes rolled up guiltily. No movement but shakes. And the more he stared, shadows on his face, exhausted emerald eyes, the more she felt thorny compassion breeding in her heartlessness. A ruby blade hacked it mercilessly. Made the whore growl:

"Quit that."

Turning before he could. To a cracked basin in front of a cracked mirror, a precarious table. It occurred to James that she could afford better. Rose splashed her face, scrubbed hard. To feel. When she looked again he was kneeling on the mattress, head bowed. She whirled, though what frightened her she couldn't say. Minutes unending as stars. Panic.

"What?" she finally demanded, shrill. "_What?_"

James stared, eyes like a child's in a man's face. Licked lips.

"Might I show something now?"

Nodding warily without knowing why.

"Aye…"

Measured steps. Standing before her. Suddenly fury consumed him. Silk, like skin carved away. Face ashen. Displayed. Rose crossed herself.

Around James Norrington's neck: a golden dog's collar, the calligraphic "B" glimmering in feeble light, the smallest of Hell's Bells jingling ruin.

"Jesus Christ…"

James feared he would vomit. Before earning this gift, just after Rose, he'd gagged over master's prized velvet. _Punishment_…

Turning from her, mouth a thin white line. Its own old scar. For a moment unmoving, then suddenly a kick to the aging wall. A second, third, fourth. Enraged blows against the utterly unyielding. Snarling. Trapped. Then he slid like a tear to the floor.

The anger bled from Rose. Ragged nails in bruised arms she wrapped herself in to recapture it. Sickened. Fascinated.

"Whose blood?" she casually asked.

James looked up. Hellish necklace bore scarlet stain. All three of them did.

"His," he whispered.

So he bled. She'd had doubts.

"Cut him," James blurted. "With my sword—I cut him. So stupid…"

Shaking again. His voice thinned.

"After that he cut me. Sugar…on my…"

Shudder. Remembering. The Lord's tongue scraping tiny, jagged crystals in most tender places. Sweetness masking agony. Rough. Torture unknown. They'd looked so innocent…

Rose nodded knowingly.

"The great Choice of Reprimand? Riding crop or china bowl? I take the crop meself. Never knew about them sugar cubes."

She imagined, didn't want to, looked at his throat again.

"Hope I don't get one. I'll kill him."

_No you won't_, James didn't say. _You never could._

But he remembered what he sought in her. Knowledge he needed from darkness she held. Apology? Never. Awareness? Perhaps.

Softly he asked:

"What will happen? You, me, this…him. What is this thing we do?"

Suddenly he slammed the floor. Calloused fist. Loud, then rasping, weak with screams.

"_I don't_ _understand_! I don't…understand…"

Rose shrugged lazily.

"Maybe I'm done now you're here," she speculated. "Maybe he'll kill me 'cause he likes you better. Maybe kill you 'cause he likes _me_ better. Maybe he'll order we kill each other. What's it matter? Til the damn Resurrection we're his. That's all."

Her flippancy disturbed him. Yet he knew not what he expected in its place.

"You're convinced we'll die."

Chuckling harshly. Assured. _Smiling_, she declared:

"Oh he'll kill me. Someday. Boredom, passion, anger…something'll drive him to it."

Distant suddenly. Her next words accidental.

"Might be the only decent thing he ever done."

He nearly stood, wanting so to sit beside her.

"You place that little value on your life?"

Shrug again.

"What's here for me? Family's gone, no friends. Ten a' my kind die every day, nobody mourns. Don't expect much different and don't very much care. I got goodness waitin'. Just a matter a' getting there."

Voice quiet, face alight. Unafraid. Like her brother. Beautiful…

…_I would mourn you…_

The thought carried him to her side. Sitting without refusal. They were quiet, lost in thought. 'Til he said:

"Have you ever made a mistake, Rose? Something that even as you do it you would die to recant?"

Pause.

"Leaving Andrew I felt that. But t'ain't much to be done on such things. Life runs forward. You can't catch it. Only make your way and never forget."

James sighed. She hadn't said what not to forget. Didn't matter, he made himself remember everything.

Outside rain stopped. Neither noticed the other watching. Rose leaned, weight on palms, rolling bruised shoulders. Landing on him, her eyes changed color with the light. Even smiled slightly, though sounding sad.

"Ach, I can't bear lookin' at that." To the thing on his neck, languid contempt. "Let me get it for ye."

Blur. Black. The feel of falling. Something indistinct, through feet and feet of water.

"No...Don't_."_

Her smile faded. Pulled away. Only then James understood the words were his.

He couldn't. Heart, mind, every nerve screamed liberation. One small act. _Remember who you are!_

_But he saw Lord Beckett's eyes. And nothing in the world could make him pull free. _

Rose saw. Before he even thought she knew it all. Shaking her head. Quiet, incensed. Each word a bullet.

"You want him."

He couldn't look repulsed, couldn't deny. Couldn't summon voice. Mouthed instead:

"Yes."

Eyes widened. He hadn't known. No, he'd always known, simply never said. But real. Now it was real. Repeated, shouted as before. Tearlessly cried.

"_Yes_. _Yes. Oh my God._"

He wouldn't weep. Rose couldn't look. Off the bed. Disgust.

Pity she'd felt, _pity_! Weakness. She'd forgotten. Bastard.

Resistance, her tongue.

"Like it, do you?" she demanded sardonically. "Those soft hands pleasure, don't they? That sweet caress before he sticks the cane into your arse. My taking it is bad enough but you…"

She paled suddenly, the grip of some hideous terror.

"He'll kill you." she whispered. "Do you understand that? If you don't escape he will crush your skull under boots worth more than everything we own combined!"

Her voice rose steadily through this proclamation, shouted. Lord Beckett _never_ shouted. How he'd smirk seeing her now.

"And you know it…Don't you?"

His head lolled. Up. Down.

"I do," he said.

She scowled, threw her hand in the air. Trembled.

"So this is what my brother died for," she spat, shaking her head. "Bawling coward taken for a God! Slowly dying by a man _half your fucking size!_"

She laughed again, disguise.

"Every strength you have," she seethed on. "A hundred ships and a world to hide in and you stay. Let him do it, _let him_. My God, you're sick as he is."

That angered him. He wanted to shout back. Couldn't.

He bit out: "You stay."

She screamed, "I got no choice!"

"That's a lie."

"Oh, go to Hell! Don't think you know a thing about my life when you get every gain at birth with your cock. Come here looking for sympathy, fuck you."

He'd stood to get away from her. Now she stamped up close behind.

"You'll die," Gritted at his back. "We both will. But when it's my turn you best believe I'll fight! Claw and tooth I'll make that bastard bleed."

"He wouldn't have it any other way," Norrington muttered. Thought about the blood he'd drawn. It had only been a shudder in his arm.

"You haven't lived through it. You've not suffered as I have. Everything that's happened to me will happen to you—And I'm glad. I want that for you, _Admiral_."

The title stung past her threats. Behind him Rose's voice cracked. Tears only in his mind.

"You can't go first. It wouldn't be fair. I'm done, understand? I am done. I want the end. I _deserve_ relief."

She didn't say the thing throbbing in her. Didn't say, _I want to see my family. _

Across the shadowed room, pure curiosity drove his asking:

"Then why fight him?"

"You read my brother's words. Never be demeaned, never look away. I disappointed him so much when he was alive. And I've got to do it again just to earn me bread. But if I'm brave and stubborn, if I'm _myself_, the part he still loved when he died…no man won't never take."

She crossed her arms, arched her back. A cat, a snake.

"You come here tonight for compassion. You think we're the same for what he makes us. We're not."

Norrington was silent. He took his cravat from the floor and hid the thing briskly, resolutely. He'd finally lifted his eyes.

"And you think you are Andrew. But you're not."

And before she could shriek to get out he left, closing the door. Rose stood rigid in the sticky darkness, lips, teeth clamped tight. She shook all over.

Across the room in half a leap. Vaulting for the door. Threw herself forward, slamming with both fists until it splintered under hand. The prow of a ship off Tripoli's coast. The heart of a whore. Or a man once a leader now turned to a dog.

She turned, slamming her back hard enough to bruise. She slid, as he had. Stared straight ahead.

"A collar," she whispered. "You bastard, a collar."

She thought about what she'd just seen. She wondered what James Norrington had been before Cutler Beckett slaughtered him. Such strength buried in those green eyes. Now gone forever.

If such a man could be so broken, then what, dear God, would happen for her?

Title: _Song in Red & Gray-_Chapter 16: Submissive  
Author: ophelivia  
Rating: R-NC17  
Word Count: 15,556  
Pairing: Beckett/OC, Gillington in this update if you stand on your head.  
Characters: Strictly Norrington and Rose this time!  
Summary: _"Do just what I tell you and no one will get hurt."_ A series of vignettes spanning both films.  
Status: In-Progress  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Pirates characters. Rose is mine, but I should mention that she began in an RPG over on This story has nothing to do with the plot of that game. The prompts for each chapter are from

**50smutlets**

Warnings: Power plays, S&M, emotional manipulation, prostitution and implied slash. The chapters will go in no real order. I'm picking the prompts at random.

_**Hell yea, I am back! This was another reeeeeaaally tough chapter for me, but I'm so proud of the result! I hope you guys have missed me as much as I missed you. I'm posting as a college freshman now. (There must be some mistake :$) During opening weekend the university told us they paid some company to be allowed to show movies that weren't on DVD yet, guess what they picked? So a good portion of this was written in the campus theater with about 100 people watching our Lord on a giant screen. The other half I owe to the amazing beauty that is Jack Davenport as Peter Smith-Kingsley in "The Talented Mr. Ripley."**__**  
**__**And, the exciting dedication for this chapter: the first Queen of Cutlerian Darkness **_

_**telera**_

_**because she is my muse and this chapter, and fic, would not be possible without her genius and encouragement.**_


	16. Chapter 16: Sticky

_**A/N: Hi everybody! This chapter is kind of a little quiet after the angst monster of last time, well as quiet as this fic can be. Before we move on I'd like to shout out my most wonderful reviewer and scene partner: survial (hope I spelled that right) for her thought provoking review. To answer you: The end is actually nowhere in sight, mostly because this is way too much fun. But seeing as I have no clue where this fic is taking me, your ideas are amazingly helpful.**_

**_Still own nothing_**

_**2-4: Sticky**_

_The Flying Dutchman_. Twisted mass of waterlogged wood, barnacles and humidity. Cutler's jacket suffocated. He strode the decaying decks, Norrington and Mercer on either side. Around him growls, snarls. The beasts of Davy Jones' crew. Peripherally he spotted a broad-shouldered body without a head, an eel twisting instead from the neck cavity. He told himself sweat was from heat.

Off the edge of the map he was. Where no living man had been. He heard it. Even through its iron prison he heard it. The sound of a shifting world. One he was shaping. He felt better.

Led by a hammerhead with legs. Strange aquatic things grew from rotted ceiling and walls. Captain's quarters no better than an undersea cave.

And the Captain himself.

A nightmare to Cutler. The stuff of myth. Standing a full two feet taller than himself, (_two!_) bearing one human foot in a massive leather boot. The opposite foot and arm both gigantic crustaceans' claws, the right appendage merely a distorted mass of tentacles that leaked disgusting slime to the floor. Tentacles too made up his face—_it's_ face, dangling down. Grotesque beard swinging on his chest. Even clothes and hat seemed fashioned from desiccated seaweed. Only things human, broad shoulders radiating savage power, and eyes. Eyes glowing hotter than Hell's coals. Under his cravat, Lord Beckett gulped. Thanked God his voice did not shake.

"Captain Jones."

"You are Lord Cutler Beckett?" the creature spat. A copious highland brogue made words indigestible, not conceal that subtle trace of derision. It steeled Cutler, stiffened him toward purpose.

"I expect you know the reason you're here."

"I know that you have something that is mine!"

Pointing. That claw larger than his head. The Lord, composed.

"Surely you know, Captain, possession is nine tenths the law. The thing you denote is now in my keeping. By the authority of these men, more specifically their muskets, it belongs to me."

He couldn't help but smile as he stepped sideways, arm outstretched toward the thing they carried. A soldier flipped the lid, creaked stridently. And almost instantly the creature's eyes flared.

"You'll not attempt control of me!" it roared, and took a step.

One single step. Not even time to flinch. All aim immediately went to Jones, but its advance continued. He, trembling violently. Gripped in something icy hot. Not suffered in years.

A blur at his border.

Norrington had turned, pulled his pistol and aimed it at the item. His face a mask. Instantly it stopped, eyes glued to the muzzle of the gun. Its cohorts lurched as well, but no one moved. Behind it, a thing with the shell of a _hermit crab_ upon its head, widened its eyes and whispered, in oriental inflection:

"It's him. Brave one."

But from exalted Davy Jones, the sea itself, there was only a pained whisper:

"No!"

Beckett smiled. Couldn't be helped. _Fear_ in this eminent, ghastly thing, delightful! And he, straightening. In control again.

"I believe Mister Norrington makes my point quite vividly, Captain. The question is do you gather it?"

Damp silence. No sound but _that_. When it looked away Beckett soared.

On the carriage ride home however, he turned and stated:

"Mister Mercer, I feel sullied and unusual."

"I'll summon the girl, milord."

Beckett nodded.

"Also, put me in touch with someone from the Admiralty. Mister Norrington's display tonight has given me…several ideas."

That night, he didn't bid her leave until he slept. As Rose put her dress on something strange happened.

In his sleep, Cutler Beckett began to scream.


	17. Chapter 17: Sound

_**Hello everyone! This chapter is basically just an attempt to get back to what the fic was originally for (SMUT!) but the following one which I finished yesterday is really angsty and plot forwarding. So this is to kind of whet everyone's appetites. I'd like to send a special shout out to the beautiful MarcieCohen because I have a great feeling we're going to be friends.**_

**_You guys know what I own and don't._**

_**1-28: Sound**_

The second she opened the door he was kissing her. Holding her wrist awkward, angle, crushing. She groaned. He held harder. In the small abyss between mouths she mockingly inquired:

"Hungry?"

He flung her into the wall.

Cutler liked the fragile veins in her eyelids, how they fluttered when she felt pain. How she kept smiling.

He pried her thighs apart, both hands. She writhed into him, fast he liked. Through expensive clothes. One gloved hand balled beneath her skirts, struck. Rose's jaw hung slack.

"_Jesus!_"

His fist a stone falling into her wetness, sending pain and desire rippling through her by turns. Both hated. Hatred spurred strength to pull, bolt across the room though intimate parts now screamed in agony. He wanted her to. Fight back. Try. Run. But know exactly when to stop.

And so he caught her when she tried vaulting the desk, covered in conquest. Ribs, chin went down heavy. The wrinkle of maps under her weight. A hundred tiny things hit the carpeted floor. Boats. Miniature men. And something else too.

Behind the last line of tin soldiers, coins meticulously set. Pieces of eight. Greased with age. Cool, unassuming. Rose watched each fall, and as they fell a piercing ring released.

Something in her mind opened hearing that sound. A sense of something massive. Something greater than the sea. Her Lordship's toys scattered all around her. Rose felt like Calypso herself.

Until Poseidon hauled her upright and like a wave backhanded her. Rose yelped.

"What are they?" she demanded.

Beckett leaned in close enough to kiss her.

"If I've told you once, I have told you _a thousand times,_" he whispered silkily. "_**Never**_ touch my desk."

And then he threw her to the floor and punished her, stopping only when her agony pulsated in measure to the ringing of the coins.


	18. Chapter 18: Woods, Beach

_**A/N: Okay, here's the super angsty plotpoint I promised. WARNING WARNING WARNING: This is the first chapter where there is actual nonconsensual abusive sex. It is graphic. Turn away if you are put off by those things.**_

**_Oh and a note about the format of this chapter. "Woods" is Mercer's POV while "Beach" is Rose's. We start with Mercer and alternate. Thank God I don't own him. Please R&R_**

_**Point/Counterpoint: 1-10: Woods/1-07: Beach**_

Silence. Freedom. Irrepressible thrill. Feet ahead, shadowed in midnight, unknowing prey. God, he'd missed it.

* * *

David Mercer was a hunter. Killing was a job. Taking life, incidental. What mattered was pursuit, fear, making your game understand that you mastered it. This belief shared by his Lord Beckett, fused them to perfection. Beckett the mind, the make, the money. Mercer's will and loyalty sharp as his blades.

Tonight collapsed loyalty. David hunted unbidden. Royal game. Illicit woods.

* * *

Wind lifted Rose's skirts, ran fingers through hair like an entertaining cully. She danced the shoreline, no shoes, no paint. The sky, massive, glittering. Sighing, lifted her arms, spun until the world spun with her. Leapt, pirouetted, kicked up sand sparkled in the moonlight like powdered pearls.

* * *

Heart in rhythm with horse's hooves. Stallion black concealed him, hoof beats muffled in earth. Sea grass, ridiculously fragile. Nothing like his dense, green birthplace. Uprooted.

So was she. Caribbean sun ruined freckled pallor. Cream, ginger. He heard rolling moors in the drawl of her voice.

* * *

"_Ribbon red, ribbon gray. Men will do what they may__Ribbon gray, ribbon gold. Ye must dance til ye be old. Ribbon gold, ribbon brown. What goes up must fall down."_

Rose shouted her song to the sea. Charged the waves. Let her dress soak, salt clinging to her chin and neck. Veered into the ocean's pull. Many nights she'd begged bigger waves crush her.

Tonight she merely wanted something clean.

* * *

He smelled her. Perfume snagging the air, provoking. Everything she did provoked him. That bitch ruined Mercer. Controlled before. Obedient, precise. His Lordship, The Company, served faultlessly. Now visits with the whore more frequent. And each time she left, his lord's money jingling on her thighs, he ignited. Standing by the door listening. Every moan, gasp. Her screams melting to sighs of pleasure like sugar in heat. Everything David desired united those riotous nights, and was held just irrevocable inches from his face.

Lord Beckett knew Mercer loved him. Unaffected. Unsurprised. But the girl…How had she done it? Without much as a look, without unraveling that love? So together they formed a new kind of Hell? Jealousy twice. Hatred and hunger each for the other.

Dismounting. Gripped the stiletto, fist gnarled as old forest bark.

_Hands don't fail me_.

* * *

Staggering from the water laughing. Her skirt weighed a ton but she didn't care. One last look, horizon behind. The ocean was onyx and looked like the edge of the world. Darkness, but daylight soon.

He watched her pick her way up the dunes. Skirt held up. David's breath stalled, but he settled himself. Hunter's patience.

The prey strode across the sand, unaware of what watched her. Brainless. Meant only to serve.

And he would take.

He would take _now._

* * *

Rose reached the top of the hill, turned again. Smiled.

* * *

The prey looked back. He slipped behind.

* * *

What was that?

* * *

Everything slowed, always did these crucial seconds, so when she whipped around the fiery tendrils of hair swayed, beckoning.

"Evenin'," said David.

Mercer. She rolled her eyes. Job ruined everything.

"What?" Never wasted words on him. He said nothing for a moment. Then:

"You're wet."

Crazy bastard.

But then, who wouldn't be? Endlessly serving him. Rose felt mad herself sometimes.

"What's His Radiance's wish?" she sneered. "Tell 'im I'm sick. Tell him I've died."

_

* * *

_

David could've laughed. Haughty mouth, this thing. Fucking pampered pet.

"I came alone, mum," he replied. He didn't, wouldn't whisper. "Me tonight."

She knew his meaning of course, but it was too much. Rash. Unthinking. Laughing at him.

"You been stealing opium?" she demanded. "Go away. Leave me alone."

By the throat. Breath tearing from her. David spotted a tree over her heaving shoulder and dragged her forward.

* * *

Traitorous legs stumbled spasmodically. Too enraged to fear this mindless dog, scratching pockmarked fist and face. Wood hard against her breasts he shoved her to the tree. He removed his hand then. Hooked one leg round her body as she showered him with throttled curses. But one stroke. Her bodice sliced in half. Only then did she scream.

"Where is he? _Where is he, bilge rat_?"

The thing bucked, her twisting body sending waves. He was hard. "Will he jump from the bushes laughing like the evil little elf he is? Let go!_ Cutler! CUTLER!"_

Her words maddened him. Mercer flipped the knife and struck her with the handle. Blade at her throat now.

"You think I can't do it alone?" he shouted. "You think I need him?"

"I'll tell!" she roared.

Kicked her. When he put his mouth to her ear she hissed as if he branded her.

* * *

"He won't help you," David muttered wildly, tearing her skirt and petticoats with free hand. "He doesn't _care_ about you. He doesn't care about anyone."

Voice ragged, chained. She mercifully silent now except for grunts and heavy breathing.

"_I _found you for him," he gritted out. "_Me!_ The lowest, dirtiest slut you can find, he said. Too lazy to even work his own fucks."

He kicked her again. This time she cried out.

"And you both fancy yourselves better than me? He laughs at me now. He's got both you and sniveling Norrington to suck his cock."

Bit her neck. Drew blood.

"And you. Well you've always laughed at me haven't you?"

Without waiting for an answer he punched her in the face. Once. Twice. Three times. Hot blood, crimson mask.

"You're not good enough for him. And I'm not good enough for him. So we're a matched pair," David whispered to her.

* * *

Laughed at him? She never even thought of him. Told him so. Even his answering smile like steel.

* * *

"You'll be thinkin' hereafter."

He took her waist and spun her. Hoisted fabric up her hips. The thing's protests rose to a wonderful crescendo, underwear down around her ankles.

* * *

"No. No. No, oh my God, no, no, _no, no!_ _No! Let go of me, stop it! Stop! Stop!_ You bastard! You can't do this!"

But he did. He smashed her up against that tree and drove in her. He did it.

Rose buried her face in splintering wood, her sobs nothing more than stark shaking shoulders. In the face of this horror Rose cried like a man. Bit her lip until it bled and didn't bother screaming. What was the difference? It was all the same.

And with this thought, wonderful detachment. She'd done this a thousand times. She would do it a thousand more before death. She'd survive, and if she didn't...Oh well.

It was so soothing she barely noticed his anger. How he shook her. Threw her on the ground so very hard. Something snapped. A faraway sound. Then he on her again. She rolled her head sideways and looked to the sea.

* * *

Mercer sensed his prey slackening. Its eyes clouded over as if entranced. She'd stopped weeping, breath even. He punched her again, hard, and she groaned but didn't move. He got up, surveyed her coldly. Alive. This puzzled him. Where was the suffering? Where was the fear?

A few feet away from the body lay the jeweled dagger. The gift from Lord Beckett. Behind smile David seethed. Looked from the object to the thing in its tattered remnants of dress. Bleeding, insensate.

He knew how to finish a job.

From the ground came glittering death in his hand. Pride wanted one of his knives. But this, more fitting.

His shadow dwarfed pale, motionless form. Like a jungle cat back on his haunches. Silver at her milky throat.

* * *

Strange sounds tugged the edges of Rose's sleep. Shouts, grunts. The unmistakable noise of a fist, not aimed for her. She willed her eyes to open. A dull thud. Heavy breathing.

All her previous terror returned. She struggled against darkness and opened her eyes. The world was red. No, blood on her face only.

Through black crimson she saw Mercer on the ground. Off her. Away from her. And someone leaning over now. Someone she couldn't see.

Had someone come to find her this time?

Rose strained up. Wanted to see. Wanted to leave. But he pushed her back. Definitely he. Hands big and calloused. Like her da's. But he was dead now wasn't he? And the voice talking so softly wasn't his.

"No, Rose. You're all right now. I'm taking you somewhere safe."

Somewhere safe.

There was no such place. But still she felt inclined to listen to the voice. Almost without say her head began to loll. And her eyes were closing just as sight returned. Lips twitched. She felt like she was drinking blood.

"Andrew?"

It wasn't Andrew. Her savior's hair only held red of sun rising behind him.


	19. Chapter 19: Fur

_**Hi everybody! I still don't own Beckett (but who does right?)**_

_**2-20: Fur**_

She'd found it accidentally, though nothing with him ever accidental. And the room she stood in now his through and through.

All around Rose they stared. Glass eyes. Pelts glowed in gaslight. Animals. Prey. Stuffed, arranged. A falcon perched high in the corner, wings menacingly outstretched. A bear reared up against the wall, twice as tall as she. (For a moment she could have laughed picturing Cutler staring down the massive beast. He probably bought it off someone.) In the middle of the room a stag on a raised dais, cream coat like velvet. She reached up, and with fingertips touched the point of its antler…

"Marvelous, isn't it?"

Her hand back. Blood. She whipped around.

"I had them sharpened," he explained in that semi-lazy drawl. "Do you like it?"

Shook her head, no words. Repulsed.

When she was young her father hunted for them in hard times. He always told her, "Killing should only ever be when no other option exists."

Beckett smirked. Took her bleeding hand without a glance.

"Come," he whispered. "I want to show you my favorite."

He led her past dead wild things. Noah's ark gone to Hell. She shut her eyes until he stopped, subtly twisting her hand when she didn't open her eyes.

"There."

On the table before them was a stuffed fox. Fur ginger, eyes a shining green. Poised with ears back, sharp teeth little knives. Cutler put an arm around her. Malicious mouth upon her ear.

"I so admire courage," he murmured. Feverish. Quiet.

"I tracked her for _days. _Through fog and dense wood and thorny bramble she ran from me."

Thoughts simmered in her. She tried turning her face away but he grabbed her mouth hard.

"I cornered her. She snarled the way she's snarling now. Leapt as if to attack me. She met the bullet mid bound, yelped and went down like a stone."

Rose gulped. Suddenly a gap of cold air as he turned away from her. A treacherous arm reached out for him. His heat.

"I exhausted her you see," he purred. "She thought she could run but eventually I caught her."

Cutler clasped hands behind his back, looking on the animal with an almost piteous sigh.

"But," he continued, a false lightness that chilled her. "I let her keep her honorable death. Everytime I see this it always makes me smile. Small yes, but such willfulness never to be found--"

"Norrington came to see me!"

Loud. Cutler turned. Looked mildly interested. Said:

"Ah."

The silence wanted to kill her. She stood there biting her lip. Awaiting the axe. The boots terrible across polished wood. His hand so fucking _soft_ on her neck. His breath sweet like tea and sugar.

He surveyed her. Rose tried to think what she could say. One chance. Once she spoke, no escape.

"Nothing happened."

This convicted. He turned. Desperate grab of his expensive coat which Rose couldn't rationalize. Her mouth ablaze.

"It's not what you think," she said.

"Do not presume to tell me what I think."

"I…He…It was late." Scrounging. Finding nothing. "He was at my door moanin' like a madman. He was drunk."

Lord Beckett looked then, sharp turn of the head.

"I see," he said flatly.

Amplified eyes. Hazel harvest moons inside a pallid face. She started to protest, then made a flattened little sound in her throat that thrilled him. But he was expressionless saying:

"Continue, Rose."

"He said he wanted to talk," she whispered cruelly. "To _apologize_."

All previous hatred coursed back through her veins just saying it. Made her forget her situation. Beckett grinned.

"Had I not restrained you that day you would have punctured his chest with your teeth," he mused.

But then he got closer. Crooked a finger under her chin. Spoke as if he meant to kiss.

"And yet you let him in."

"I let him in," she repeated, an unknowable voice.

"So what then was said?"

Forced herself to step back.

"Well…"

Nothing else, but slowly, one white hand twisted to her neck. She knew not that she'd done this.

Cutler understood.

They stared at each other for a long time. Neither had to say anything. Like a woman faint Rose sat on stone steps leading from the room. He approached her, looking down.

"You must learn to play nicely with my new pet, darling," he whispered. "Or you shall find me displeased."

Rose was quiet a moment, and then did something utterly terrifying. She looked her Lordship in the eye and cried.

His answer was to wrap his arms around her shoulders and lean her head on his neck. She was frozen with horror, and yet the tears would never stop.

"Hush Rose, shhh." Fingers running in her hair. "It will be all right. Poor pet he has frightened you."

"Cutler," she gasped between the desperate sobs. "You have to believe me I never—"

"You never…what?"

He was looking at her again. And the coldness in him was too much to bear. Her horror surged at what she'd done and what he now was doing. Gentleness the knife that killed her more than any cut or bruise.

Rose looked back at the fox on the table, its honorable death. It was laughing at her.


	20. Chapter 20: Drugs

_**Okay everybody, update on the rise! I really love how this chapter came out I hope y'all do too. Oh and just in case anyone is interested, I made a trailer for the fic last week and put it on youtube. I own absolutely nothing.**_

_**2-25: Drugs**_

The admiral walked in, body of an unconscious woman wrapped in his coat. Dreamlike. Both covered in blood.

Whispers. Wind over fire. James remembered suddenly these were not his men. They wore navy, weren't navy. Company all. Crimson coats would've seen no blood. They thought he couldn't hear them.

"My, my. What here?"

"Didn't know the old dog had it."

"Took it a bit far."

"I'll bet she's right pretty once you clean all the shit off her."

They laughed. Laughed at this man they'd been bribed into serving. And looking at them now, as James held Andrew's pillaged twin in his arms how he _hated_ them. Who could he trust?

"Masters Murtogg and Mullroy!"

The pair before him before another breath was drawn. Tremblingly silent, but eager as ever. Their gazes never wavered.

"Mullroy I'd like you to find a surgeon." The Admiral's voice, breathless, haggard. "The lady is badly injured. She needs a professional."

"Aye, sir!" Mullroy's double chin wobbled as he nodded vehemently.

"Good man."

"A-and me, sir?"

The other, half his friend's size, looked with keen brown eyes.

"I need you, Mister Murtogg," James grunted, shifting Rose in his arms. "To go to my quarters immediately. I'll be along in a moment. After I finish here."

Leaning in.

"This is the twin sister of Lieutenant Gillette," he whispered. "I trust you to give her all the respect you would have afforded him."

The words held sway. These two, thought naught but bunglers, the last of James' former life. Murtogg especially, who'd worshiped Andrew so. And now he nodded, took her without pause. Looked at the bloodied face searching for the slightest hint. As James had done. Still looking as he cleaned blood away while she lay on the Admiral's bed, when his friend returned with James and the doctor.

"Blimey," Mullroy sighed.

"Like he's back," Murtogg agreed sadly.

Cutting away scraps of dress. Wounds. Bruises aged black to gold. White scars, cuts scabbing over.

Legs bore the worst.

"This one," the surgeon said, "isn't just clumsy."

James was silent, scared by what he saw.

Andrew's face, but body was his own.

"We have to set her wrist," the surgeon murmured. "Deep gash down her chest where the bodice cut, and a few others. Needs stitching."

"He attacked her with a knife," said James.

Oil made the needle glow. Entered. Rose opened her eyes and screamed.

She thrashed, needle still hanging inside her chest. James had to tie her feet with what was left of her clothes.

"Head back," the surgeon ordered.

James' hands went into the fiery curls. Her eyes fogged, unseeing orbs that rolled in her head like one possessed. The contents of a bottle into her mouth.

"All right love, drink for me. There's a good girl."

James noted to hire this man. Rose collapsed against him, screams now intense sobbing. And suddenly words. Pouring from an unlocked mouth and soul.

"_Géillim! Go mo tiarna géillim. Go a ghlór, go a shúl, go áhilleacht agus ahirgead agus pléisiúr táim aithríoch!"_

"Tongues!" Murtogg whispered. "Shall I fetch a priest?"

"Not tongues, dolt," Mullroy snapped. "She's talking Irish. _Géillim._ 'submit.' _Tiarna_. Lord. I submit to my Lord."

They stared at him.

"My grandmother was half," he mumbled. "Know a few prayers."

"Submit to my Lord," repeated Murtogg. "Makin' peace with God then?"

Rose wailed again at the needle's kiss. Her sobs loud, her words fast, only just sustained by breath.

"_Luí le chéile go é__stadfaidh mo croi__…Ach__santaím céard__déanann sé go mé …"_ she panted._ "__Maróidh sé mé ach santaím céard__déanann sé go mé!"_

James knew these weren't words to God.

The surgeon sutured final cut, looked to him and the sallow marines.

"The wrist. All of you hold her."

Like a vice James laid one arm across her stomach, Murtogg clutched one arm,

Mullroy her legs. He looked down them, their horrors, swallowed.

"Just hold on," the Admiral ordered. He felt he was saying to them all.

_Crack_.

Rose howled like an animal. This time everyone understood.

_**"ANDREW!"**_

That scream echoed inside James long after he'd paid the man. After he'd glimpsed Murtogg trembling against the wall outside. After he threw away the bloody shirt and wept washing his face.

She woke again screaming, quieted with him there. Then she crawled, ignoring splinted limb, bruises, into his lap, swung one slack arm around his shoulders. Clinging. Sightless. Head on his heart.

What could he do but hold her?

_I submit! I submit to my Lord. To his voice, to his eyes, to beauty and money and pleasure I am penitent._

_Making love to him will stop my heart, but I covet what he does to me. He will kill me but I need what he does to me!_

∞

Her eyelids lead, mind a void. Rose moaned.

"She's comin' to!"

_S__hut up!_ She thought groggily. With great effort her eyes pried open. The room swam. With clarity came two faces leaning, red coats, muskets at their backs.

"I'll beat you each apart! I'll take you both together! I'll—Oh fuck…!"

Spinning. Rose but a hand to her forehead. And when she tried bracing herself found she couldn't move the other. A hand reached for her.

"There, miss. You shouldn't be movin'."

"Where am I?" Firm, but not unkind. "Why won't my arm move?"

"'S broken, miss." Tiny fellow with thin wrists, hesitant voice. "This is Fort Charles. We're takin' care of you."

When had anyone ever told her that? Rose blinked, smiled after a moment.

"Thank you," she murmured.

Raising her eyes, putting on her whore smile full scale.

"Am I allowed to ask the names of my rescuers?"

They looked at each other, as if they'd forgotten and the other might remember. The little one finally sputtered:

"Oh! Daniel Murtogg. And back there that's--"

"Jules Mullroy, milady." Portly but an open face and little upturn to his lip making seriousness impossible. "But it wasn't us, you must thank Admiral Norrington."

Rose went cold. In slow desperation waded through memory like water. Waves crashing…The beach. The beach. What happened on the beach? God damn why couldn't she _think_?

The two men noticed nothing. They were asking if she needed anything. They would serve her. Was she in any pain?

Pain, Rose thought, was constant.

"Perhaps, miss, you'd like to see the Admiral now?"

She nodded, managing to look secure. Mullroy bowed to her again and left. Murtogg stayed. Desperately trying not to look at her. She smiled at him and he blushed.

"Miss?"

"Please," she corrected. "Rose."

He paused, thought about this.

"Miss," he said again. "I…was rather wonderin'…if…"

_Here it comes._

Murtogg moved forward slightly on the bed. Rose readied herself. One kiss was all she could manage at the moment.

"Forgive me, miss," thin voice suddenly stronger, just a little. "But...is it true? You are…the lieutenant's twin?"

He said it as if Andrew lived. As if any moment he'd walk in looking for her. With such _pride_ for him…for her. Rose nodded.

"I am. I was."

He made a strange sound, almost like a repressed sob. When he looked at her his lip was curled in on itself.

"A fine man, miss," he almost choked. "The finest. I served under him…before the accident."

Anger. Quick as lightning. Fueled by the empty look in the boy's eye and her ever present barrenness.

The door opened suddenly and he bolted from her side. At attention. And there in the doorway, a mirror image of the day they'd met, Norrington. Skeleton in a fine topcoat.

He approached Murtogg. They saluted. The boy left without a look back and the anger grew.

When he turned to her his face became tired and drawn. Shocked, Rose let the silence pass between them until, very softly, James asked:

"Can you remember?"

He had a way of doubling whatever she was feeling in half the time. It was as if he'd read her mind. It unnerved her, so she tried again.

"The beach," she murmured. "I…went for a swim. And then…someone…"

A flash of red.

"Mercer!" she whispered. "It was Mercer, he…he…"

A pause.

"Why'd you do it?"

Voice perfectly level, eyes intense, focused. His turn to be unnerved.

"_Why_?" she persisted.

He ignored her, checking the splint. Silence reigned. Frightened her. Suddenly another flash.

"What happened to my dress?"

James' coughed, reddened, averted his eyes.

The look that came then to Rose's face was like nothing he'd seen. Terrible suffering, crisis. Horror. All directed at herself now. Sounding like a child.

"You saw me?"

Something broke. Her mouth went small and hard. Her every muscle contracted. She shook her head at him in disbelieving fury.

"You _son of a bitch!_" she swore at him. "You meddling bastard, who do you think you are?"

"You're not well you should sleep." James said dully.

"_You saw me naked_!" she screamed again. "Bring me here so all your toadies get their kicks while I was out! Like what ye saw, did you? Did the boys like it? A little gift from the Admiral to keep 'em quiet!"

"Stop now."

Resolve wavering. He stood, turned away. Her thoughts sped.

He'd saved her. He had _saved_ her. And she was screaming at him half-drugged ravings. She was in James Norrington's debt. It couldn't be true. She felt she was losing her mind. So she grabbed anything anger could offer. Wrong as it was, she held her hatred tight.

"That boy, that Murtogg, he said Andrew died in 'the accident,'" she rambled. "_The accident_! Is that what you make them call it 'round here? He was ready to cry. My God, my family, all those men dead and you call it an _accident?_ How do you live with yourself?"

"ENOUGH!"

He exploded. Picked up the chair and hurled at the opposite wall. Rounded on her.

"I _never_ called it that!" he shouted. "My God in Heaven, woman, what, what is wrong with you? I _saved your life_ last night and this is what you dare say to me? Insulting my men? How could you ever believe…?"

He shook his head coldly.

"We had to peel the dress off with our hands because nothing was left. Your shift would not come off even with shears so caked was it in blood. Of course I bloody saw you naked! Everyone sees you, you're a whore!"

He stopped. Gone too far. Now his voice cracked and he whimpered uncontrolled.

"Do you have any idea what I risked? Do you…do you know what he'll do when he's told…"

He stopped, gasping for breath, words like sparks between them. They stared at each other. Rose whispered: "Oh God."

Neither had thought of Beckett.

"My dagger?" she mumbled, fingers pressed to her mouth. Norrington shrugged miserably.

"I went back looking. I didn't find it."

"No, that can't be," she said rapidly. "It, it has to be here somewhere doesn't it? I keep it with me at all hours it has to be here. It can't be lost, I need it. It's mine. He'll be furious if I lost it, it can't be—"

"Rose!"

James was shaking her. She stared at him, sobering as if the fit had not occurred. Again the fear.

"This is your fault," she hissed. "He did it to you and now he's done it to me too! God, how I hate you."

"I know you do," he answered evenly. "Rose, I know you blame me. I blame myself as well. I hate myself."

Tears at that.

"But in the night while you slept I held you as you called for Andrew. For Andrew and him both. We are all each other has in this world under his rule. No one can know what we know of Lord Beckett. If we don't merge we'll die or worse. Please, Rose, I beg you please. Let me help you."

She stared at him for a long, long time. With his large green eyes and white face. This man with the collar at his throat. For the briefest moment she thought of saying yes.

"Please leave me alone," she sobbed instead.


	21. Chapter 21: Alone

_**I own nothing but the object of Cutler's insanity**_

_**2-13: Alone**_

At his desk, leg jiggling nervous, thankfully hidden. Voice of the official before him a blade in his skull. On, on, on…

"So, milord you can see that our posts in Calcutta are doing twice as well as last season…Samples at the docks for your approval…"

The anger boiled in Cutler like sickness. His mind clouded, he couldn't focus.

"Reports have been made of a quicker route to Beijing, sir…If you look here…"

Couldn't look. Nothing made sense. Orange curls across his vision. Latitude lines became hips, ass, thighs, horrendous legs.

Weeks, _weeks_ she had not come! Now something was happening.

He ordered the maid bring scarlet roses. Vases and vases they choked him. Ripping them, petals in his bathwater. At night burying face in pillows for even a trace of her smell, finding nothing, tearing them apart with his teeth.

Needs unsatisfied. Routine disturbed. Filling with disquiet.

Cutler was filling with Rose.

"We managed to halt a fleet of Dutch ships off the coast of…" Straining to hear. "Six ships stocked with ginger and cinnamon…"

Cinnamon freckled shoulders. Ginger hair coarse amid her thighs…

Why was this _happening_? Never had he been defied. Had to remember himself! He was Lord Beckett. Respected, admired…feared…craved. And she, she was dirt.

But she was part of his routine. Mind, body accustomed to hers. In spending nights alone, she seeped into his days.

"There was however an outbreak, sir, on _The Prestige_." Groves now. "Yellow fever. Death toll high…"

Perhaps she too was dead, Cutler mused.

It wasn't so much she was gone. He could dismiss her whenever he chose. But he didn't _know_. It was this driving him mad. She would not simply stop, rebel on a whim. Maybe in the early days, not now.

Something definitely amiss. When he sent Mercer after a week the man had gone pale and dithered endlessly, finally bringing _Norrington _instead. Thirteen years. First mistake. No mistake at all.

Strange goings on, anxious pets, disobedient servants. A storm was brewing. Power maybe slipping.

A chill ran through Cutler at this.

He had to get her back.

"Sir…Sir? _Sir?_"

He blinked. Pulled back. Officers staring. Cutler could've screamed.

"That's…all we have to show you sir," Groves told him, eyebrow arched.

"What…? Oh, that's fine, fine." He waved a hand. "Dismissed, gentlemen."

An idea.

"Actually Lieutenant, stay. I have a task for you."

The trader bowed and left, closing the door. Cutler got up, went to the window looking at the bustling docks below. Behind him:

"Sir, if you do not mind my saying so, you seesomewhat…preoccupied…this afternoon."

Cutler allowed himself a snort. In a flurry of sudden movement grabbed quill, paper.

"I want you," he said as he hastily wrote, "to go to this residence. Summon my servant to me. Tell her I am unhappy with her lack of response and demand an explanation."

Theodore Groves saw the flame in Beckett's eyes.

"This is important, Lieutenant," he said. "If she won't speak you'll find out the reason however possible. If you have to sedate and drag her into this office do, but in the week. Is that clear?"

_He's barking mad,_ Theodore told himself.

"It is, milord," he said evenly. "But surely someone else on your staff could better serve…Mr. Mercer perhaps?"

Lord Beckett looked sideways at him.

"Regarding this particular matter, I believe Mercer has encountered…_complications_," he murmured.

Groves nodded as if he understood.

"As you command, milord. Whom am I being sent to?"

Beckett looked up and smiled. More himself.

"She is called Gillette. Rose Gillette."

If the young man felt anything hearing this name he said nothing. Cutler turned to him.

"You were the obvious choice for this, Lieutenant," he said silkily. "You'll find this person and yourself have had…previous dealings."

Pause. No elaboration. Finally Groves bowed.

"Sir," he said in parting. But as he reached the door:

"Oh and one more thing."

He turned.

"If you have any questions regarding your orders, ask Admiral Norrington. He, I believe, has a place."

The voice suddenly harder. Cold, cruel. Theodore went.

"First Lieutenant on the strongest ship since the _Dauntless_," he muttered. "A sodding messenger boy!"


	22. Chapter 22: What

_**AN: Man, I'm really behind on this aren't I? You guys are like three chapters behind my livejournal community. Sorry about that! I own Rose. Period.**_

_**2-34: What**_

Two men. Wavering light, stone. Secrets.

"Why are you asking?" James tried to sound flippant. As Lord Beckett would've sounded. Theo drank.

"Because little lord's back is up. That and…other things."

Trying not to flinch.

"Are you bedding Beckett's mistress?"

James loved his businesslike seriousness, at home with it despite mounting terror.

"No," he murmured. Truth.

"So why send me here?" Groves asked, frustrated. "This isn't my job."

James sat, looking at his knees. A sudden desolation held him. Having Theo here, lying to him so.

_You're here,_ he thought. _Because pet's stolen food from the table. _

"You know who she is, Theo?" he whispered. "The girl. Do you know her?"

"I know she supplies Beckett with things fine silk and toy boats cannot," he snorted. "I know I'm to find her. But James, my friend."

He leaned forward to look him in the eye.

"I'm for you. I'm concerned with _you_. Hiding from me."

Hiding, all James had ever done. Try as he might to resist, the care and questions in Groves' eyes undid him.

His Lord had known this would be so.

"You always were oblivious." Sad smile. "You're the only one hasn't heard."Everything he could. Even then much was kept. Theo was quiet.

"I was supposed to come here that night," he muttered at last. "Something came up but…Oh, poor woman."

"The men think it was me," he muttered, weak laugh. "So does Beckett probably. He…he controls her completely. She wept more for the dagger given by him than her wounds."

Ragged sigh.

"I so want to help her."

Groves shook his head.

"James," he said firmly. "He's gone. She won't change that. It's terrible surely, but it's her life, not yours."

James was expressionless.

∞

First thing heard, thick brogue through closed door.

"What?"

"Miss Gillette?" he called unsurely. "Miss Rose Gillette?"

Pause, she said:

"That's not Norrington."

"No, lady," he replied, disliking her tone. "My name is Lieutenant Groves. Might I speak with you?"

Sound of the lock. Door inched open. An eye, a red curl.

"What?" she demanded again, this time shakily. Theodore took off his hat, bowing.

"Miss Gillette, I come in capacity as first lieutenant to the East India Trading Compan—"

"I know who ye are," she cut across. "And you know me so be square eh?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Rose sighed.

"Come to ogle Mercer's quarry, Lieutenant?" she asked, almost resigned. "This sort of gossip must not be very common, but last time I saw you I didn't sit a week. That said, I'd be obliged if you went merrily to Hell. Goodbye."

Groves stopped her.

"I would never mock…your misfortune…miss," he said hesitantly. "I come on behalf of Lord Beckett."

Door slammed. He knocked again.

"I have my orders, lady. I'll stand here until they're fulfilled."

"Piss off! Or I'll call a marine!"

Simultaneously realizing the stupidity of this.

"Miss Gillette." Groves closed his eyes. "Please open the door."

Rose pressed to the door, sighed. She'd counted each of twenty days, suffered twenty nights waiting for this. Jealous, possessive Cutler. Cutler the hunter always inches from violent rage. She'd played him false. She'd pay. But wouldn't she have anyway, wearing wounds he hadn't made? Wouldn't he call her liar, pat his dog's head and say she'd lost her courage? Why did all these things terrify her?

_Chained,_ she thought bitterly, then called out:

"You come to collect me, Lieutenant?"

"Not necessarily." Half lie. "Lord Beckett is impatient, but I'm told you're too injured to return to your…regular duties…"

"By whom?"

Voice warning. Tread carefully.

"Admiral Norrington, miss. So I could find the truth."

Sound inside, maybe a stifled shout. A bang. The door flung open. Theo recognized her, decorated though she was by bruise, stitches, arm slung to her chest as if guarding her heart. She scowled at him.

"Let me see if I understand." Words grinding from her. Sudden quiet viciousness. "Norrington told you what happened to me, now you'll go back to Cutler and tell him Norrington told you?"

Groves couldn't fathom her sudden emotion. Throwing back her head, swearing.

"Bastard! Everywhere I turn! Fucking dragging it all over port!"

Like everything with this man, mind raced mouth lied. Groves looked queerly at her.

"Miss, the Admiral would no more talk on this matter than I. You'd do well not to insult him in my attendance."

"Jesus Christ you people!" Screaming now, all she ever wanted to do. "I am so fucking tired of you! All the same, ar'n't ya, you honorable boys? Make port, crawl to our cunts and go to church come morning! You say ye come for the truth, Lieutenant? We know the truth, women like me--_whores_ like me. Here's truth for ya: your precious Admiral sucks Beckett's cock as I do! As much a whore as me!"

Did not know why she said this. Theodore blanched briefly, then ground his teeth, stepped forward.

"Now look here!" he said sternly, gripping her arm. Never would've touched a lady so, but she no lady. Rose jerked away.

"I told him to leave me be, that fool! And now when you go back…When you tell…"

Anger to tears. Wiped them furiously. She didn't care about that, about him.

"Buy me time, sir," she begged Theodore in a whisper. "A few days most. I can't come now, but I will. You must tell his Lordship."

A different person than one raving minutes before. Groves was about to nod when her eyes brightened. She dashed back behind the door. Seconds later returned, satchel of shillings in her fist.

"This is everything I have for now," she said austerely. "Give it to Beckett. A good faith payment. I'll be back in four days."

She trembled, eyes huge, gleaming in her narrow face. Groves nodded.

"Miss," he bowed again, turned, walked away. Rose likened him to a wind-up doll.

∞

When Groves sent his message to Beckett, the little lord bid him come that very night and slammed his teacup a might too hard when Theo entered.

"Lieutenant. You've done what I've asked?"

"Yes sir."

His smile was a trick of the light, dropping as he turned sharply to his right, snapped:

"_Leave._"

Mr. Mercer materialized from nowhere and obeyed. Theo saw a clearly bewildered look on normally mean, pock marked features.

"Sit," Beckett drawled once he was gone. And then: "Well?"

Groves related all. Beckett, quiet, eyes alight with something Theo didn't want to name. When Mercer was mentioned, however, he sat up rigid, narrowed his eyes.

"Their accounts are too alike to be false."

"Norrington and she?"

"Both, sir. She didn't say as much, but mentioned him by name. Called herself his 'quarry.'"

Cutler looked up at that, but held his tongue. Groves showed him the money, explaining, and he couldn't hide a chuckle.

"Clever wench."

"She's fears your displeasure, milord. The Admiral mentioned something lost in the attack. Her knife. A gift from you?"

Cutler's mind worked quickly around this final piece. Unsettling…most unsettling.

But all he said on this was:

"Aha. Thank you, Lieutenant, for this enlightenment. If you could do just one last thing?"

"Milord?"

"Tell Lieutenant Greitzer I need to see him at earliest convenience. And send Admiral Norrington to me."

Hearing James' name in that mouth harkened Theodore back. Vulgarity. Slander from a fallen woman. Meant nothing.


	23. Chapter 23: Pain

**_A/N: I've been gone for a really long time because stupid flames have made me discouraged about this site. But today I realized that on I have thirty chapters and this thing is my baby and I'm going to keep posting. We're behind, but I really don't care. I'd like to thank everybody who reads this!_**

**_I don't own anything from Pirates, but I own Rose_**

_**2-9: Pain**_

The door creaked shut, a wounded moan.

"Milord?"

Silence. Then:

"_David_."

Tongue became metal. His Lord knew his Christian name.

"Milord?" he repeated stupidly.

Half smile radiant. Suddenly he stood, around the desk, leaned back, relaxed. David watched, spellbound, the curve of his Lordship's arm supporting him.

"Show me your knives," he ordered still smiling.

He didn't understand. Slowly, stiffly, fatality twenty times across the wooden surface. In breeches, boots. One down his spine. Cutler watched approvingly. Went to the window.

"Perhaps you've heard, David, a strange development. One of my pets has had an accident."

Were Mercer weaker, blade would've clattered to the floor. Cutler turned back abruptly, smiling still.

"But of _course_ you heard. You hear everything. That's why I rely upon you so heavily."

Walking directly to him now. The smile never moved.

"I'll tell you something else, David," he began. Confidential whisper. Everytime his name passed he slipped slightly further. "I've heard whispers one jealous pet attacked the other. What say you?"

Nothing. He said nothing. Too close to his master's body. Too relieved. Norrington. Norrington did it. Norrington.

The master walked away. Sat languidly down, appraising for the first time the tools that did his killing.

"How long has it been since you and I hunted together Mr. Mercer?"

Formality up like a wall between them. Knocked wind from lungs. Swallowed before speaking.

"Long, milord. Not since our journey here."

He nodded, sighed.

"Terrible shame. I wonder, do you miss it as I do?"

"Not much game here, sir."

Lord Beckett looked down. Silver dimmed by comparison.

"_You managed to find some_."

He looked again. Eyes cruel. Viper's strike. David stepped back. He'd been careless. His Lordship lifted one stiletto, surveyed it. He looked sad. Looked into Mercer's eyes. He whispered:

"There is one more to show me…isn't there?"

Acid sweat. His own blood roared deafening.

Mercer threw himself forward, scarred palms slamming the desk. Closer than fifteen years' servitude.

"Milord, I had to. For you, I had to! That thing is no good to you!"

Cutler didn't raise his voice.

"That _thing_?"

Rage strangled in velvet. Airless room. David panted.

"It…she…the girl," he stuttered. Lord Beckett rose.

"You acted without permission," he hissed. "You lied to me. You damaged my property."

Looking pensively to the weapon.

"I'd like to see if you endure punishments as well as you administer it, dear Mercer."

Abruptly, he raised his voice.

"Lieutenant Greitzer!"

First lieutenant of _The HMS Endeavour_, East India's pride. Powerful, brutal. Scarred face different from David's. David wished he'd been the one supplying them and more.

Cutler ordered: "Restraint,"

David never learned fighting with hands. Flesh paled beside steel and blood. But with his work spread now upon Lord Beckett's desk, in Greitzer's iron hands, the _second_ most feared man in the Caribbean struggled like a mewling kitten. Greitzer tied him to his Lord's French chair.

One arm unbound.

Unhurriedly Lord Beckett came to stand before wayward servant. Slower still, reaching out, caressing blemished cheek.

"Oh David…David, David. Why make me do this?"

Marble hand continued journey down. Black waistcoat…buttons dulled brass. Mercer shut his eyes.

"I don't _want_ to hurt you."

Curbed moan. Cutler reached. Grabbed. Gripped. Long. Hard.

…In his pocket.

A ruby garnet knife.

"Milord…" he began desperately.

"Have you heard of Hammurabi's Code, David?"

Confused. Almost to the point of forgetting. Cutler grinned again.

"No? I'll explain. And I'll use small words so that even a dog like yourself may understand."

Entire body prickled with shame at the jibe. Lord Beckett began to circle him, glimmering blade exposed.

"In Hammurabi's ancient kingdom prisoners were punished on one rule. 'Eye for an eye.' Whatever one did was done to one in return. Swift, even justice."

He made a nimble cutting gesture in the air. Then leaned close.

"Because of you I am left unsatisfied. And you had the gall to think I wouldn't find out. You shattered her arm, David."

The clerk paled. Looked back at Greitzer, who smiled.

"No, milord," he rasped. "Please…"

Beckett trained his eyes away. Fear. Drowning. Something to appease.

"Sir, please! I had to," he insisted still, struggling against the binds. "That woman, that slut is the devil!"

"Spare me," Cutler drawled.

"She'll not serve you as I have. She'll betray you, sir please. You mean nothing to the witch! She'll not love you as I have!"

Silence. Shame. Lord Beckett's expression of disgust. Sneering sound in his teeth.

"Do it," he ordered. Greitzer took hold.

Nothing left. He'd given all. Nothing but rage.

"You wouldn't have given her to me had I asked."

He stopped, gestured to Greitzer to hold. Mercer went on.

"Had she been plagued you wouldn't have tossed her to me. You had me bring her to you. You gave her to Norrington. I wanted her. So I took."

Cutler narrowed his eyes.

"Say that again."

Mercer craned his neck toward his master.

"As you would have, milord."

Lord Beckett hauled off and struck his face with the knife's hilt. Jewels sliced skin.

"_Now!_" he roared.

Lieutenant Greitzer overdid it some. Bone through skin. Mercer cried. Lord Beckett's face was blank.

∞

Rose was at the bookstall when she saw it. Small crowd growing, all whispers, pointing. Curious, she'd pushed up front.

Very few didn't know Mercer by sight. Even fewer didn't fear his name without it. He certainly was harder to fear with his arm bound in linen, his face caked with blood.

For a moment Rose stared. Then she ran, found an abandoned alleyway and pressed herself inside. She looked down at her newly repaired bones, breathing hard. And then she threw her head back and laughed. Til tears ran down her face she laughed. She laughed til she was screaming.


	24. Chapter 24: Night

_**This chapter is my favorite so far! I'd love some thoughts on it. I don't own Beckett, or James. The two maids are copywright of my friend Telera. Rose is mine.**_

_**1-2: Night**_

Standing. Dark. Him.

Fallen asleep over work, exhaustion finally outrunning insomnia. Paradox. Expression soft, neutral. She studied gentle curve of his neck, the way the powdered queue coiled like the devil's tail. Shoulders sighing with every breath. Lips parted. Rose couldn't tear her gaze away.

He looked so…_human_.

Twitch. Cutler groaned, shook his head. She froze.

Leaping from his chair, he was Lord Beckett again. She didn't glance at him, and so didn't see the look that came to his eyes.

"_Rose._"

It was ravenous, feral. Two steps had her by the face. Kiss? No.

Viciousness. Bloodied lips. Mouth fuck. Why was she holding him?

Suddenly he stopped. Rose heard her small gasp. Slapped her. Head snapped. She looked up from behind copper waves, dyed earthen by the night. No protest.

"Rose," he said again.

Grabbed her, hauling her to face him. Plunged again to that triumphant kiss. It continued, burning her neck, collarbone sharp on his chin. This gesture reminded too much. So she clutched the sides of his face. Stared fiercely into his eyes, reassuring herself. Pressed against him, Rose hooked her legs around his waist and clung. Cutler moaned. Rose used free hand to undo buttons of her dress. Cutler's eyes snapped open. Hand flew, staying. Rose flinched.

"_Wait!_" he exclaimed. Panting hard. "Wait."

He yanked her off, still by the wrist, and pulled her through the door.

"Cutler what--?"

"Hush."

Couldn't keep up. Boots on wood floor. _Ich! Ich! Ich! _The sound they made. Running in the dark. Stairs, halls. He stopped dead, flung a pair of doors she'd never seen.

The master's bedroom.

Back in position. Kiss so savage the small lord lifted her clean off her feet. Sweat as he struggled jacket, waistcoat. Falling to the bed. It occurred to Rose she'd never been atop before. He, wriggling beneath her, sliding from his breeches like madman in a straight jacket. Finally they slid away with a painful hissing sound, defeated to the floor. It made her open her eyes. She gasped at what she saw.

Lord Beckett, nude, face fraught and desperate. Yellow hair messy and long and streaked in powder. Bottom lip quivering, harsh gasps rattling his chest.

Rose had prided herself never calling him _Lord_ Beckett. Cutler. Cutler. Got a rise from him. Made her feel free.

Now she knew the difference. She'd been referring to the wrong man. She'd only ever known Lord Beckett. This, this man too small for his huge bed, unkempt hair and big blue eyes, _this_ was Cutler.

And the sight of him sent her mad.

She stooped to kiss him, nipping lips and jaw. Double lock. Lips and bodies joined. Rose sighed as she slid, wet, onto him.

"Ride me," he growled.

The command set something off inside her brain. Hips crashed. Assaulted. Had to make it right. Gone too long.

Not just fuck, but _please_ him. She needed this. Why did she need it?

She was succeeding. Eyes rolled in his head. Jaw hung. Each time the hammer struck the forge meaningless amalgamations of vowels streamed through lips. To the metronome of her a climbing, breathless scale he'd held since the last full moon.

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!" he panted.

"Shhh."

How she got away with that she didn't know. Nothing tonight as it should have been.

Rose thought about men before Cutler. Alleyways, dockyards. Ones no honest woman touched. Who haggled, howled, begged. Ones she liked best. Made her powerful, beautiful…

Tonight her Lordship was just one of them. And yet she didn't feel what she had then, didn't ride the moans and mock him inside. No. Instead they stoked fire, made her squeal and sigh. She felt nothing. Not even the plain fact that it had never been so before.

Voices rising. Cutler tugged his hair and thrashed. Rose bit her lip. Last thrust. She gasped. The air was knocked from him. He sat up, dug nails into her neck. Then he placed hand over her heart and, with last strength, shoved her off him.

Cutler reached under the pillow. Metal, moonlight. Several deep breaths before:

"Yours."

The knife in her fingers. She clutched it. She'd missed it.

∞

The clock's third peal awakened Rose. Bolt upright. Cutler at the mirror. Her dagger lay beside her. Relaxed. He turned. Clothed despite the early hour. Whatever he'd done or been was locked up now inside them. Languidly he came to the bed. One quick move. Pinning her wrists. He slammed her down.

"Don't keep me waiting like that, pet," he hissed. A smile. "Ever."

"What's this shite?" she snapped, unsteady for this sudden change in him. "Get off me that hurts!"

He bent down, kissed her ear.

"I _like_ hurting you."

His tone enraged her. Part of her believed. Still believed in the sounds and wide eyes from the bed. He persisted.

"Did you hear me? Rose?"

"I was _raped_!" she shouted.

Quieter.

"I was raped and you know it."

She thought of Mercer with his bandaged limb, his eyes so full of hate. Looking into Cutler's now she tried to see it there.

But something changed in him. His face showed nothing, not even familiar indifference. He moved off her slowly, lying to her side. His grip, though relaxed, didn't drop from her arm. He looked…curious. Staring as the newly healed skin turned golden in the lamplight. The way a child might at something he didn't understand.

"Yes," he murmured. "I suppose you were."

And he pressed his cheek to rest upon her wrist. Whispering:

"But I've taken care of it."

There was a pause.

"Thank you," she said.

∞

Morning's first blue glimmer's lit Rose's way down bedroom hall. Unsure of her way, still reeling, she got lost easily in the nest of the house's upper level. She assumed that was the point. This house had secrets to be guarded.

Every nerve still burned with Cutler's touch. Still riding the afterwaves of orgasm, the tide of confusion. The cool cheek on her wrist.

And so she almost screamed bumping into the crouched figure in front of another door. A woman with dark hair, large tear rimmed eyes. Rose recognized the maid Marie. Stooped down to help her.

"All right there, dear?"

She jumped, shied away. A large bowl of cloudy liquid sat beside her.

"No," she whispered. A French accent. "Please!"

As Rose backed away another voice was heard, coming up the stairs.

"What's going on here?"

A portly old woman, her drawl low class London. Lantern held in a white knuckled grip. The French woman ran weeping to her.

"I cannot go in there again!" she sobbed. "I can't, I can't!"

"You have to, lovey," the matron replied almost sadly. "You know what'll happen if you don't."

Suddenly she looked up, as if seeing Rose for the first time.

"I think _you_ should get out."

Everybody knew, of course. Rose gritted her teeth and prepared for war.

"Just trying to help."

"I don't think anyone asked." Monotone firmness. "Please leave."

"Fine," she shrugged. Continued up the hall.

The last door on the right was open ajar, yellow light leaking from the crack. Rose went to pass by. Behind her, she heard one woman gasp, and the stout old thing bolted on her periphery to slam it shut. Rose stopped, cocked her head, placed a suspicious hand on her hip.

"A might jumpy, aren't we?" she said with an acidic smile. "I don't suppose you'll tell me what you're hiding so poorly in there."

"The devil have you!"

"I just got back from his room, actually."

The woman turned purple. Rose could tell, with satisfaction, she was fighting not to slap her.

"Bog Irish jezebel!" she spat. "Without his Lordship's generosity you'd be begging in the streets!"

Suddenly a sound cut through from behind the ranting maid. A muffled call. Ragged. Despairing. Rose narrowed her eyes. Without waiting for an answer Rose shoved past the woman, who shouted:

"Stop!"

Not knowing what she'd find. Only cracking the door to darkness. Even then, the smell of sordid skin. The iron tang of blood. A candle stub drowned in itself as flame fought for life. No windows. A bed. A masculine form lay naked. Long dark hair covered unshaven face. One arm extended. And in the pitching light she made out something attached to the wall. _A chain._ Angry red crisscrosses marred the sculpted back.

Rose gasped, hand to lips locked tight. Quietly she shut the door, knuckles turning white on the knob. The older woman had her lips pursed to a scowl. The French girl clasped her hands and said Hail Mary.

"Has nobody thought," Rose hissed, breathing hard. "To _cut…him…down_?"

"His Lordship did not wish it."

The finality, the slavish acceptance with which it was said, burned Rose inside. She took a furious step toward the older maid, who retreated in spite of herself.

"His Lordship did not wish it, his Lordship did not wish it!" she mocked her. "If he ordered you jump from Fort Charles's battlements would you obey that too? How do you condone what goes on in this house? How do you sleep?"

The younger girl began to sob softly. Rose didn't hear it.

"So bloody many of you, for god's sake! Why not just rise up and take him? Are you all that much afraid?"

"Madness!"

For the first time it was Marie's voice. Louder than that of the first. Fixed Rose with challenging stare.

"You've no right to say such things!" she stormed. "You know what it is to be here with him. You _know._"

Silence. Rose and Marie locked eyes a long while. In the girl's dark, desolate gaze the whore saw something recognizable. Too familiar. Frightening.

Rose collapsed a little on the door, sighing and nodding defeatedly. Hand over burning face.

"Ach, you're right," she mumbled. "You're right. I'm sorry." She straightened.

"I'll go if ye'd like."

All at once Marie soft, withdrawn again.

"Lady, I'd never dream of asking…"

"As she's already reminded, I'm no lady," Rose interjected harshly. "Let me go." In softer voice:

"That man in there, I owe him penance."

And so she found herself in sweltering dark. Approach. James slept, or maybe was unconscious she couldn't tell. His head turned to the wall. Anxiously she perched on the bed's corner, next to one bound foot. Her chest tightened. She'd never gotten anything half as bad as this. She suspected she knew why he had.

Suddenly every memory she had of James Norrington flashed rapid fire across her eyes, ending with this animal lying here.

Then it coughed. Harsh to rack the bleeding body. It moaned.

"James." Rose tried to sound soothing. "James…"

Eyelids fluttered. The slightest turn of neck. Eyes green and red.

"Ro…Rose?"

"Aye."

This felt tremendously stupid. Hastily she dipped a rag into the bowl of healing salve.

"This'll hurt." More the stupidity. He didn't reply, but hissed as she touched the skin. She flinched.

"Sorry…sorry."

Fading into silence. The sound of water hard in her ears. Until he finally wheezed, with great hardship:

"Why…you…?"

"Shhh."

She placed a gentle hand on damp hair, thoughts whirring hornets in her skull.

"How long have you been here?" she asked numbly. James breathed deep.

"Days…No…light."

She nodded. The question tripped, battled out of her.

"Because of me?"

He shook his head, winced.

"I don't know."

James licked his lips, gathering strength for words.

"I…didn't tell…him. Rose. But…had to tell Theo…when he came…"

"Mm, you're lieutenant? Yes he came to see me too. Must admit I wasn't terribly cordial to him."

The memory slapped her. The thing she'd revealed. She bit her lip and turned away, even if he couldn't see her. Silence. Guilt. When James spoke it was with tattered reverence.

"He…kissed me. He's never done that before," he sighed.

Rose thought long and hard about these words. She thought of how she'd mocked Norrington. How words like these disgusted her, gave ammunition to wound him, blame and lies. But she also thought about where she'd been an hour ago. That lavish place where she'd come hard and thanked him for it. How she'd _missed_ it. How could she ever have found fault in this?

I've taken care of it. Damn him.

Rose leaned down, her mouth on James's ear.

"_I'm sorry."_

Fingers moved. He couldn't even lift his arm to take her hand.

"It will…be better…now."

He slackened. Eyelids fell like weights. Silent.

For him, for her, for their lives, Rose allowed herself tears.


	25. Chapter 25: Who

_**Hello all! I know it's been hideously long since I updated but I got the most lovely review from Morose Scarlet and she has convinced me to keep this going. I don't own Tia, she's Jerry Bruckheimer's. The lyrics to "Calypso" are property of Suzanne Vega. R&R still rocks! **_

_**2-33: Who**_

Rose was lost. Green rushed past on either side. Vines choked, roots tripped, leaves blocked her view, but she ran and ran. Frightened and unheeding.

Suddenly another figure just inside her vision. A brunette blur. Dancing. Calling.

"_Striapach… Rua striapach…Chugainn…"_

Female, accent coffee dark. Called her "red whore," urged forward. How could a native know Irish speak?

Running. Breath gone, muscles afire. The voice laughed everywhere.

"_Gasta, striapach_! Faster, whore!"

Rose felt she'd die with the pain in her legs. She could see the form once more. Turning hips, arms leafless trees. One last push.

White sunlight sliced eyes. Cloudless, cyan sky. Sand. Water. The black woman sat upon a rock. Tattered dress, arms like branches. A night sky mouth. A mother's smile.

"Welcome, whore."

Rose wasn't afraid. Took her hand. Teeth made of moon. The woman kissed her passionately. Rose had never kissed a woman. She was breathless when they came apart.

"Who are you?"

A smile.

"Yeh want to know me."

She danced Rose in a circle. Hands rougher than driftwood, seastone cool. Faster, faster, faster. The coarse dreadlocks against her face. Dizzy, slipping. The woman caught her when she tripped. Held on. Sang. It haunted. It made Rose ache.

_My name is Calypso_

_And I have lived alone_

_I live on an island_

_And I waken to the dawn_

_A long time ago_

_I watched him struggle with the sea_

_I knew that he was drowning_

_And I brought him into me_

_Now today_

_Come morning light_

_He sails away_

_After one last night_

She began to weep against the woman's bronze shoulder, and was hushed and rocked like a child as they resumed a slow dance. Then again they picked up pace. Rose wanted to stop. Suddenly the woman threw her off, her face crumpled in upon itself like the dry leaves amidst her hair.

"What's wrong?" pleaded Rose.

She looked up from the sand, arms around herself. Her eyes swam with grief.

When Calypso screamed the sky blackened.

It was like the roar of waves, the call of a falcon and the roar of a lioness. The wind whipped. Rose fell to the earth in its embrace.

Suddenly on the water, there appeared a host of ships. They blazed with fire. Calypso stood. Tears cut runnels down her face. She led Rose to the shoreline with a hand on her shoulder. Orange light danced across faces. Heat blazed.

Rose was terrified. She made to run but the woman held her fast. She struggled.

"Please…" Sobbing. "Please."

Calypso turned her to face the burning horizon. Again that terrible, wonderful song at her back. This time it was a blade buried deep between the shoulders.

_The sand will sting the feet_

_And the sky will burn_

_It's a lonely time ahead_

Forcibly turned again. Eyes bored black into her. Sweet and sad and commanding.

"_You must not ask him to return."_

"Who? Who are you talking about?" Rose was screaming, fighting against her.

"_You let him go…Let him go_…_"_

Fading away. Heat replaced with cold. Struggling to hold on.

"Wait! _Calypso_!"

Rose walked the Port Royal streets for hours following her nightmare. Her eyesight was blurred. The sun was rising. The song tortured her mind.

It was an accident she wound up at his door.

Just before dawn James was awakened by one of his maids, quite sleepy herself.

"Someone here to see you, sir," she mumbled.

James raised his tousled head.

"Who?" he inquired.

Seeing her at the bottom of the stairs, tired face broke into a smile. In spite of herself, she felt better.


	26. Chapter 26: Bad

_**2-49: Bad**_

As far as Rose could tell, Admiral Norrington's townhouse-granted by Beckett and the Company-was a cover.

Every time she called he was there. The pianoforte in the foyer, lingering in the hall. Like a ghost.

Cutler, of course, was perfectly aware of this, but was either ignoring it or keeping half an eye only. Two pets, one cage. He housebroken, she on her very long leash. Sweet to him, civil to each other and silent to everything else.

And so passing her a little after midnight in the mirror blue dark James slipped something into her hand, turned and walked away. Rose went home, unfolded the note and quickly read the pristine scrawl.

_I want to see you. This __evening __morning after we've both completed our tasks. Leave your door unlocked for me?_

_I cannot take the silence anymore _

_I should not be doing this._

Rose promptly folded the paper and swallowed it. She'd never been a word type. Letters to her seemed dangerous. They lived on long after their sentiments died.

But she left the door unlocked, and towards morning he stumbled in. Collapsed. Staring into her eyes. That night they did nothing, and shouldn't have done it.


	27. Chapter 27: Bone

_**2-31: Bone**_

It wasn't in James to tell stories. Never really felt necessary to talk about things he'd done. Victories, long shots, schemes that had only worked by the grace of God, all considered bloody business in which good men were lost. Words eluded him. If it wasn't a command, screamed above canon and sword, it gummed up his mouth as if clogged with water.

Other people were different. Other people were storytellers.

Andrew had been a storyteller.

Always Drew standing atop the bar at the local tavern, voice slipping in and out of that harsh, jocund brogue making his accounts so much the better, telling James's tales so _he_ thought he was hearing them anew.

So when Rose, just about to sew up the gash in his eyebrow, said, "Tell me again," he only looked at the flame sterilizing the needle and replied:

"You're sure you can do this?"

"I'm a professional, Norrington. Tell me."

He'd told before. Her mind better than his mouth. But she was letting him talk.

She could see it.

Blue, black. Sea, sky. _The Dauntless_ near invisible against it, mother awaiting her sons' return, lit just barely by the light of the moon.

And then like the dead come Judgment Day they rose from those waters. Silver, skeletal, rotting flesh and bits of clothes. Eyes cruel in sunken sockets. Out for gold, blood, life.

The only important things in Rose's opinion.

He'd had to tell her the whole long legend. Cortez and the Aztecs. Jack Sparrow and the rescue of Elizabeth Swan. Rose's smile had been mildly sad.

"You're a knight."

"Oh please," James rolled his eyes.

She'd been locked in his quarters. Drew had put her there. She'd tried to explain. He'd laughed.

Drew looking the other way.

"In a way they'd had the same idea," James explained. "I'd gone with a small party to the caves. They'd sent two men in a boat portside, so the lads would see them before anything else."

"Trojan horse?"

"Men in dresses."

"Poor gits."

Not funny to Drew surely. Watching something without skin shoot his hat off with a pistol. Rose imagined that bullet. Wondered if clattering bones were deafening to hear.

"When we were young I'd sneak up on him and tap the other shoulder," she laughed. "He always looked the wrong way."

But even In the face of death's own fleet, seeing nightmares alive, no hesitation. Sword in one hand, gun in the other, Andrew rallied the boys and charged.

Massacre. A mid's body, hand still on the bell.

"They couldn't die," James stated, in that steady James way. "The moon made them appear as they did."

Rose gave this a lot of thought. Wondered if she could bear such a thing. Constant hunger. Longing. These pirates were, in their own way, pitiable. In a way, she understood them.

She didn't tell James this.

"I can't believe you even made it to the ship," she said instead.

"Sometimes neither can I," sighed James. "The two scoundrels who had decoyed climbed aboard and manned the cannons. Killed every man who tried to stop them."

Always back to the deaths. The guilt. Rose bit back a sigh.

"But you came aboard," she insists. "Shot one of 'em."

"To the face. It reared up and came back at me."

"So then what?"

"What else? Drew my sword. Ah, Rose!"

"Don't move."

"Didn't."

Anyone in her life would've run.

Was James in her life? She pushed the thoughts away for now.

"And over his shoulder…"Could it be called a shoulder? "…Andrew."

"Howling like a demon. Slashing away. Laughing."

He always laughed when the odds were stacked highest against them. He gave the men hope as comrades died around them.

"So how'd it end then?"

James sighed heavily.

"Fate? Luck? _God?_ I have no idea. I know I blinked and a flesh and blood man had my saber in his belly. They watched him fall. One looked to the moon, and they were on their knees begging for quarter."

"I would've gullied them all."

James started at the vehemence in this.

"We did as the law stipulated."

She didn't reply. Only finished the stitching. Blood tinted fingertips.

"You know something, James? I always said I was destined to be a whore. Meeting you, I think I'm wrong. I coulda been a nurse."

Jest of course, but he rather liked the idea. She, caring for others as he knew she could.

"The governor's commissioned a hospital. Shall I tell him to expect you?"

"And give Cutler the pox? No. Tempting, but no. Get out of here now, Norrington. You'll live."

He chuckled, left her. She washed her hands, watched the water turn pink.

She dreamt that night of fighting beside them. But the skeletons wore Company uniforms.


	28. Chapter 28: Naked

_**2-24: Naked**_

"Are you challenging me, Rose?"

She should have known. After the first month, the first week. The rule would never stand.

Before Cutler, Rose never took off her clothes.

Other gals thought her mad. They thanked lucky stars for cullies between sheets. The rattiest inn was a palace to them. Rose passed. Cullies liked her for it. She'd go lower if it meant a back alley. On the wall, under the pier. Quick, cheap. And for years, the secret kept itself.

But Cutler allowed nothing very long. And when she came in one night it was the first thing from his mouth.

_Remove your dress._

"Yes. Yes I am."

Cutler grinned. His pet knew not how her voice fractured. Her body shook with rage. He loved it.

"Why?"

The word floated from his lips like a perfect note of music. Her shoulders hunched against it. Eyes narrowed.

"I don't. Answer. To you."

This, ground out against every scrap of better judgment. Almost insane. Sweet celebrated lie. He licked his lips.

"Don't you?"

She poised to bolt.

"Please don't."

Battle _and_ a plea. Cutler grew gloriously hard.

"Please…"

He moved. She ran. Head start. Fair.

The stairs four at a time. Her blood drummed:

_Don't let him do it. Don't let him see_.

After she disappeared from sight, Lord Beckett descended leisurely.

"Mr. Mercer!"

Silent emergence.

"Milord?"

"My pet wants to play fetch."

"All doors locked, milord."

"Excellent. Help me find her will you?"

Mercer marched. Rose had fled to the opposite wing of the house. Panic drove her, animal terror. A door. More stairs. And in the dark she tripped, going down with a scream. End over end over end. _Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud._ Limbs windmilling as she hit the stone floor, like broken stalks of sugar cane. On bloody hands she desperately crawled through the pain.

_Oh God. Oh God, oh God_.

Then suddenly, a hissing in the blackness.

One small flame barely lit Mercer's face. With hunter's instinct he sensed the scream inside her, placed a finger to his lips and stared at her.

Titian hair undone, sweat and blood in muted light, furious eyes glaring up from the stone. This image would stay. Inspire…_things. _Future actions. She wouldn't remember this when that time came.

"Got you," David whispered.

But he didn't move. And with light on the stairs he turned fast as a rabbit.

"Thank you, Mercer."

His wig was mussed, face flushed with exertion. Angry. Rose didn't care.

"No."

Mercer's iron grip.

"_No!" _Shrieking wildly hoisted up the stairs._ "I won't do it, I won't!"_

"Silence!"

His voice was vicious.

"Fuck you!"

A silent instant. Cutler quietly stepped forward. Then lunged. Fistful of hair. The slap echoed audibly. She screamed again, though from pain or rage she'd never know. He turned, raced up the stairs.

Cutler stormed into his office, servant and slave behind. Yanking his desk drawer open. A length of rope. He took her bodily from Mercer, threw her to the floor. Then crouched, saddled her stomach.

"Tether her," he commanded, holding the rope outward. "And get out."

Mercer roped the whore to the leg of the desk. One white, limber hand curled in a fist.

Walking away, he fought not to look.

They were alone. He raked the disheveled wig from his eyes, threw it aside. Powder fell into Rose's face, making her choke.

"You want to fight me?" Seething. Clenched teeth. "Go ahead."

She clawed the rope with ragged nails. Tried to knee him in the back. Bucked her hips and felt his huge arousal grind against her thigh. Lord Beckett smiled a terrible smile.

"Now pet, let's see what you're hiding."

Screams angry to hopeless. His touch turned gentle, cool. Undoing buttons, laces, and every last defense. He tore her from the inside out.

"No, no Cutler, please. Cutler please, I don't want to. Please, Cutler, please."

He hushed her, stroking her bruised forehead. Rage just below his whisper.

"Be quiet now, my trampled Rose."

Slow, awful the way stockings came away. Rose felt the fabric slide over each crag, every line. Like insects, or flesh eating birds' wings over her flesh. Secrets crawled, prickled. How could they still feel at all? Skin nearly dead, not near enough.

Rose shut her eyes and waited.

_Don't cry. Whatever happens._

Silence strangled. She waited for a brutal strike. To be thrown from the house in antipathy. Flinchingly she opened her eyes, praying desperately for some unknown thing God would never give.

He was staring, lips slightly parted, eyes glazed over in undisguised, animal lust. Burned. Both legs covered in silver-hot cobwebs. Like war paint, flowers, fractured moonlight across his bedroom. Primitive. And in feverish eyes the primitive fear. Her breath, a whimpering repetition of his name.

"Cutler…Cutler…Cutler, please…"

She was like an animal. And he fucking wanted her.

Pressing hot mouth to her ear.

"You're disgusting," he whispered.

She tried to kick him. His hand shot out and gripped her wrist until she whined like a dog.

"Making me chase you," he sighed, the flattest voice. "I should reopen every one and watch your blood drain to the floor."

And he kissed her.


	29. Chapter 29: Talk

_**1-45: Talk**_

Rose turned over; bit her wrist to keep from screaming. Beside her, warm solid flesh twitched. Spoke.

"No…_no_…"

Sharing a bed with Norrington wasn't easy. Norrington talked in his sleep.

Sometimes just nonsense, orders about sails and jibs from a time James was all right. But dreams mirrored life for a man so in reality, and tides always turned. Then he'd scream names. Sit up, eyes glazed shouting:

"_I'm drowning! Please, the water, I'm drowning, I'm drowning!"_

Watching James Norrington cry chilled her blood. Through walls of ice she didn't wish to comfort him.

But fire melts a chill. And there were nights when one name passed that roused her fury still. James unseen in the dark calling:

"_Drew! _Drew,I'm sorry…"

Rose cursed loudly, sometimes hit him. He whimpered, didn't wake.

_Her_ name came most.

"Elizabeth..."

Rose buried her head in the pillow. Damn her. Damn him.

She wondered why she let him do this. What did she have to gain? Arms around her waist. The memory of two redheaded children in a cramped London apartment with only love keeping them warm. That held-down feeling she'd run from forever.

James rolled over.

"Never stopped beating," he rambled loudly. "I carried it with me it never stopped beating. It…it was the right thing to do, wasn't it? Right thing…_Elizabeth!_ Elizabeth, where are you?"

More sobs. She'd never get used to that sound.

But the nights without nightmare were the worst. They were the ones that sparked tenderness in Rose, if only out of fear.

James would sigh, toss so the sheets imprisoned him. Make sounds that Rose found too familiar. Sounds that could have been pain, but could also have been something else. His face contorted. Calling. Loud into the night.

"_Milord!"_

The way he said it his voice pitched upwards, like a pleading child. He seemed at once to reach for and desperately pull from the phantom in his head. And when he cried then it was desire and fear. Then, only then, would Rose take him against her chest. Cradle him as best she could and hope it helped.

"No, James," she'd mumble in his ear. "Not now. Not yet."

Other than that, she wasn't kind. She was tired, usually sore or bleeding and didn't want his ghosts in her bed. Most nights ended something like this:

"Heave to, take in sail, launch the boats…"

"James."

"Search every cabin, every hold down to the bilges!"

"_James."_

"Set top sails…clear up this mess…Steady men."

"_Sleep_, ye douche."

"One day's head start. So stupid. So weak. Why'd I do it?"

Half asleep, Rose reached under the bed, grabbing her shoe.

"Worst pirate I've ever seen. The compass worked, it did. Didn't understand…What you want most…"

It struck him cross the shoulder. The touch light, but he up like a shot.

"_What?_" he demanded, looking around. _"What? _What was…?"

And by the time he settled down, she'd be fast asleep, curled with the blanket entirely on her side.


End file.
